An Indian dream built in Dubai: Riyan Malhan’s journey to Youth Olympic gold

UAE’s Riyan Malhan during the badminton men's singles final at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games. | Photo Credit: AFP

On the night he became Youth Olympic champion last week, it took a while for Riyan Malhan to process what had just happened.

One indication was that he barely slept. After beating France’s Madi Sow 21-17, 21-18 in Dakar, Senegal, the 16-year-old shuttler from the UAE picked up his phone to find it flooded with notifications. “I was a bit confused. I had come into the tournament hoping to win it, but I still wasn’t expecting to get so many messages. I was tired, but I tried to reply to everyone,” he tells Sportstar.

It was only the following morning, however, that the enormity of his achievement struck him. He woke up to discover that Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, had posted an Instagram story for his 17 million followers congratulating Riyan.

“That’s when it hit me how big it was. That was a really big deal for me. But it is a really big deal for the UAE also. It’s its first Youth Olympic gold,” he says.

The medal puts Riyan in the company of players such as world champion Shi Yuqi, who won Youth Olympic gold in 2014, and Asian Games champion Li Shifeng, who claimed the title in 2018.

Few would have predicted the UAE would produce a Youth Olympic badminton champion. The country has little history of success in the sport. And it wasn’t particularly likely for Riyan either. Sport, leave alone badminton, was hardly a career option anyone in his family had considered.

His father, Vipul, is a banker working in Dubai, while his mother, Vasudha, is a former teacher from New Delhi’s Vasant Valley School.

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Vipul, the son of a professor at New Delhi’s St. Stephen’s College, had shown some promise himself. He competed in Delhi State tournaments but never pursued the sport beyond that. “In the 1990s there wasn’t that much of an option of being a professional sportsperson. There wasn’t a lot of support. I was expected to study, so that’s what I did,” he says.

He continued playing recreationally, though. When Riyan, who was born in Dubai, was three, Vipul took him along to the club where he played. It was there that the toddler decided he wanted to pick up a racquet himself.

“To distract Riyan, we gave him a child’s racquet and had him hit a balloon. But very quickly he started being able to hit that balloon using a grown-up’s racquet as well. I was really surprised to see that he was so comfortable hitting with that size of a racquet. That was probably the first time I thought there was something unusual about him,” Vipul says.

Soon, Riyan was introduced to his first coach, Afshin Royal, under whom he began practising by hitting a shuttle suspended from the ceiling. Even at four, it was clear that he had taken to the sport. “At that time the racquet was bigger than him. But Riyan wanted to play all the time. There wasn’t a single day that we had to remind him that he had to go and train. It was a case where he was guiding us rather than us guiding him,” says his mother.

Riyan soon began winning age-group tournaments in the region, often against older opponents. But while Vipul wanted to give his son the opportunity to pursue badminton seriously, Vasudha was initially less convinced that it could become anything more than a hobby. “I thought at most it might help him get into a good college,” she says.

Obsessed with badminton

It was Riyan who insisted otherwise. “He was obsessed with badminton. Other kids would have a favourite cartoon character on TV; Riyan would be watching badminton matches. (His favourite, that he says he’s watched dozens of times, is the 2016 Olympic men’s singles semifinal between Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan.) But I remember once during the COVID pandemic, when he was 10 years old, he came up to me and said, ‘Mummy, I’m going to be a professional badminton player,’” Vasudha recalls.

There was, however, a problem. Even though Riyan began showing signs of unusual talent, the UAE had no badminton federation, and opportunities to compete against a strong opposition within the region were limited. Another Indian-origin player, Tanisha Crasto, also raised in Dubai, had eventually moved to Hyderabad’s Gopichand Academy in search of better prospects.

Initially, that seemed a likely course for Riyan too. “After he had started beating everyone in the UAE, we took him to play tournaments in India. He was the Delhi U-13 champion and also had an Indian U-13 ranking,” says Vipul.

There was serious consideration given to the possibility of moving his training base to India. When Riyan was around nine, he attended a talent hunt organised to select players for the Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad. He made the cut and spent two months at the academy before his parents decided to bring him back. “He was just too young to stay by himself in a hostel in a completely new country,” says Vipul.

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Eventually, however, the circumstances changed. The UAE established a badminton federation, and Riyan found that he no longer needed to look elsewhere for the opportunities he wanted. “I was only playing in India because at that time the UAE didn’t have a federation. There was never any problem with infrastructure and facilities in Dubai, so once we got a federation, it made much more sense for me to shift back to the UAE. I’ve been born and brought up here, my family lives here, and I go to school here. It made much more sense for me to train here as well,” he says.

Riyan’s family says the UAE federation has backed him wholeheartedly. Dubai’s cosmopolitan character has also worked in his favour. “Dubai is a melting pot for a lot of people. You have some of the best coaches from across the world who are training at the academies in Dubai. Riyan’s been able to train with Indian, Indonesian, Chinese and Danish coaches right here. Every academy has welcomed him,” says Vasudha.

When he needed more specialised training, the federation also facilitated opportunities overseas. “The Federation supported me to go and train across the world. I’ve been part of training camps in China, in Indonesia, in Malaysia, Thailand and also India. I’ve been able to train with some of the best coaches in the world,” says Riyan, who earlier this year spent two months at Shanghai’s prestigious Bukon Badminton Academy, set up by Olympic champion Cai Yung.

He has also trained at the Center for Badminton Excellence in Bengaluru and alongside Olympic silver medallist Mathias Boe in Dubai.

Perhaps the UAE’s biggest limitation had been the lack of quality sparring partners. That, too, has changed. In recent years, several Danish internationals, led by double Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen, have begun using Dubai as a training base, giving Riyan opportunities to train alongside some of the world’s best players.

Over the last few years, he has had regular sparring sessions with four-time World medallist and two-time European champion Anders Antonsen. “It’s one of those things that you just can’t imagine,” says Riyan. “I’ve been able to take part in sparring sessions with Anders whenever he’s in town, which may be two or three months every year. That’s also helped me a lot, and I’m really grateful to him.”

‘With a support system firmly in place, Riyan has had the opportunity to let his talent shine.’ | Photo Credit: AFP

The relationship between the two has since progressed beyond that of sparring partners. “He gives me advice before matches. He tells me how I should play and how I should prepare. He’s more of a mentor to me now. In fact, he was texting me during the Youth Olympics and before the final as well,” Riyan says.

Showing quality

With a support system firmly in place, Riyan has had the opportunity to let his talent shine. Still in his final year of school, he has already made his senior professional debut this year, winning the Ghana International Challenge. That was followed by gold at the Asian U-17 Championships in Chengdu in September.

But it was at the Youth Olympics that he made his biggest mark, beating China’s reigning junior Asian champion Hong Tianyue before overcoming the highly rated French prospect Madi Sow in the final.

Riyan is pleased with his performance but is also conscious of the areas in which he needs to improve. “I think my net play was pretty good, especially during this tournament. What I think I can improve on is perhaps develop some more variations from the back of the court. I think right now, I’m a little impatient. I keep trying to finish the rally fast, so I go for the smash more than I should. I think maybe I need to hit a few half smashes or drop shots. I also think I need to get physically stronger,” he says.

The Youth Olympic gold has also given him a clearer sense of what he wants to achieve next. “I think one major goal was the Youth Olympics, and now that I’ve crossed that, I think my next target is the World Juniors next year. After that, I would want to at least qualify for the 2028 Olympics. I think that would be realistic. After that I would aim for a medal at the 2032 Games,” he says.

If he comes anywhere close to achieving those ambitions, Riyan is likely to attract attention not just in the UAE but also in India, the country of his parents’ origin. He is aware of the interest. Although he has previously competed in India as an age-group player, he has little inclination to switch nationalities.

“I’ve had many people come up to me and ask me, 'Why don’t you play for India?’ They tell me that I’ll have a much better chance to grow, but I’m not interested. I think UAE has done what no country could have done for me. They’ve given me a UAE passport. There are just so few non-native people who have this passport. That means they have so much faith in me. The amount of support they’ve given me is incredible. I’m really proud and happy to represent the UAE. I believe I have the talent to be the best in the world, and that will be the case no matter which country I’m playing for,” he says.