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Chris Dednam Badminton SA goes to World Team Championships
Sudirman Cup
Badminton South Africa goes to World Team Championships Badminton is the fastest racket sport in the world, with a world record smash of 493 km/h, and with 180 countries registered with the Badminton World Federation. Badminton in South Africa can be played at all age levels, including u/9, u/11, u/13, u/15, u/17, u/19, students, seniors, veterans (>40), masters (>50), grand masters (>55), silver eagles (>60) and golden eagles (>65). South Africa produced two World champions and twelve Olympians since 1992. Badminton in South Africa Badminton is played in all nine provinces in South Africa. Anyone that is interested in playing badminton can get the contact details of the provincial associations on the website of Badminton South Africa (BSA) at http://www.badmintonsa. org. The associations will then be able to assist with the various clubs’ contact details. People can also like our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ badmintonsouthafrica.
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Game On Magazine, July: Issue 18, 2015
Wrap of Sudirman Cup The Sudirman Cup is the World Team Badminton Championships, held every two years, and one of the most prestigious titles in the Sport. There is no prize money for this event - just the prestige of playing for ones country. In addition there are valuable BWF (Badminton World Federation) World Ranking points to be earned and this is particularly important for countries in the lower groups, like South Africa, in an Olympic Qualifying period. During the recent Sudirman Cup in May 2015, South Africa lost to Turkey 2-3, Czech 2-3 and Austria 1-4 in our group 3 ties. The two matches that we won in the first two ties were Jacob Maliekal’s singles and Wiaan Viljoen & Andries Malan’s doubles. These three players are the three that are trying to qualify for the Rio Olympics and their wins earn them very valuable world ranking points for qualification, as the Sudirman Cup was the first tournament in the qualification year (May 2015 to April 2016).