Every parent watching a badminton final on TV sees the trophy moment. What's far less visible is the decade of ordinary, unglamorous sacrifice that usually comes before it. Lakshya Sen's career — now including a Commonwealth Games gold, an All England final appearance, and a fourth-place finish at the Paris 2024 Olympics — is one of the more publicly documented examples of what that sacrifice actually looks like.
Relocating the whole family
As widely reported in Indian sports media, the Sen family moved from Almora, a hill town in Uttarakhand, to Bengaluru specifically so that Lakshya and his elder brother Chirag Sen could access professional-level coaching. That's not a small decision — it means uprooting a household, likely changing jobs, schools, and social support systems, on a bet that two young boys' talent was worth restructuring an entire family's life around.
This is one of the most common — and most underestimated — costs of serious youth sport. It rarely shows up in a highlight reel, but it's almost always there in the background of an athlete's story.
A parent who became the coach
Lakshya's father, Dr. D. K. Sen, is himself a badminton coach and has been closely involved in developing both of his sons' games. For many families we work with, a parent effectively becomes a part-time coach, driver, physiotherapist, and nutritionist — not because they set out to, but because professional support isn't always affordable or accessible early on, especially outside major cities.
Two children, one finite budget
Raising one elite athlete is expensive. Raising two — as the Sen family did with both Lakshya and Chirag pursuing competitive badminton — multiplies the financial and time pressure. Coaching fees, travel to tournaments, equipment, and lost income from reduced working hours all compound. Most families never talk publicly about this part, but it's the single biggest reason many talented kids never get to a national, let alone international, level.
Why we built our programs around this exact problem
This is precisely the gap Keshav Foundation exists to close. Our KF Scholarship funds coaching and gear specifically so a family's financial capacity isn't the ceiling on a child's potential, and our Columbia off-court sessions give parents access to nutrition and mental-resilience guidance so they don't have to become an unpaid specialist in five different fields overnight.
If your family is weighing what it would take to support a serious young athlete, you don't have to figure it out alone or fund it all yourselves. Talk to our team about what support is available for your child's stage of the journey.