Badminton

The tournaments of team and individual events were held at the RWE Rhein-Ruhr Sports Hall, Muelheim a. n. Ruhr, Germany, the very same venue where the official German Badminton Open was held.

We used the latest technology of LiveScore via special program of Tournamentsoftware. We were very fortunate to have two wonderful Dutch men Hans and Aede who used their own vacation from their work to support us. They have worked very hard during the tournament with the preparation of the electronics equipment that connected to many computers and laptops via the network to link with the internet on real time live! I had some help from another Dutch man, Albert, who came to visit me twice to advise me on how to use the tournamentsoftware. I found it absolutely fantastic and this has proven to be very successful as all of the match schedules were completed on schedule, which to me was unheard of before!

I had prepared all players’ ranking order beforehand and setup the program using the ranking lists to form the official seeding order and the draws were made by Albert who was a specialist on that program and he was also a member of the Dutch National badminton referee association.

The tournament began with the team event which consisted of 13 countries and there were 4 groups. The seeded order of the team was based on the results in the most recent major badminton tournament which was at the Deaflympics, Melbourne 2005. The top two of each group qualified to the knockout stage. Many of the match were excellent and well fought. Russia beat Japan 3-2 in the final and Lithuania took the Bronze after beating Great Britain also 3-2 in the 3rd/4th place play-off.

The number of the individual entries had been on the increase in spite of several players who were unable to come due to various reasons, such as entry Visa and financial problems. All single matches begun in the round robin where both Men and Women had 16 groups each. As usual, the top two of each group qualified to the knock-out stage. All doubles events ran in the knock-out stage only.

I am so pleased to say that the playing standards of players have improved tremendously and many matches were very close. All results showing the full scorings are attached. Rajeev Bagga of GBR (formerly IND) has defended his Men’s Singles title again. He has been the Champion since he first emerged the World Deaf Games in New Zealand 1989 and now it has been 19 years since then. This is absolutely remarkable and one of the best deaf athletes we have ever seen.

More details, results, and photos can be found via www.badminton-wc.dg-sv.de with some further links including the players’ statistics which can be useful to the badminton officials and coaches. You can also read many reports from the daily basis during the competitions from the same website.

We had doping tests on the last day of the competitions where players were chosen by random.

After the official competitions were finished and I had organised a special match on the very last day between the European and Asian players consisting of six Men’s Singles, six Women’s Singles, three Men’s Doubles, three Women’s Doubles and six Mixed Doubles. Each side picked its own captain and a coach to select their players from the same continent to form the team.

It was absolutely fantastic to watch some players from different countries to play together. Europe won 14 – 10. One of the Men’s Singles matches between Simon Le Blanc of France and Daisuke Miyazaki of Japan was the most excitng one. It was the first time we have ever witnessed, since the new score system was formed a couple of years ago, when their score has reached to the “Sudden Death” point after they were tied 29 points each on the decider set. Daisuke managed to win the very final point after a hard long rally. It was absolutely climax time for everyone!

It was nice to have our two ICSD Executive Committee members during the competition; Siv Fosshaug came for the first four days and then Josef Willmerdinger joined for the final four days. I was so pleased that they have enjoyed themselves very much and have admitted that the game of badminton was extremely fast before their eyes!

I have received two official bidders to host the 3rd World Deaf Badminton Championship for 2011. They are Korea and Malaysia so I will be working with them in obtaing necessary bidding paperwork to the ICSD office and maintain contact with them to ensure that the best host is appropriately selected for the next Championship site. I will update you all once I get more information.

I must thank from the bottom of my heart to German Deaf Sports Federation for their fantastic work before and during the competitions. Sabine Grajewski and her staff have worked many hours from early in the morning to late in the night, sometime well past midnight to prepare for the next day program. They have shown their real professional job. I shall stand up and bow them all for the 5 Star service to make the best Badminton tournament ever!

I have updated the Badminton Ranking PointsPDF and they can be found on ICSD website.

Martin Bogard
ICSD Technical Director - Badminton