All-Africa Junior Badminton Championship-Seychelles' junior pre-selection follows intensive training |20 January 2005

A pre-selection of 16 players has since Monday this week been following intensive training ahead of the much-awaited competition slated for Algeria.

The tournament, which in the past has attracted junior players from all around the African continent, was originally scheduled for April this year but was postponed because of technical problems.

The organisers have re-scheduled the tournament for either July or August.
"We are still awaiting a letter confirming the dates of the competition. It will be held either  in July or August. But the young players have already started their preparation ahead of the tournament," said Seychelles Badminton Federation (SBF) chairman Michel Bau.

According to Chinese coach Luo, so far things are going in the right direction.

"We started training on Monday and so far everything is going on fine. The players are giving their best in training to pin down a place on the final team," said coach Luo.

As for local coach Bibi, he had this to say to Sports Nation :
"We are not sure yet how many players will make the trip. It will all depend on our budget and the sponsorship we receive. We are targeting to send between four and six players to participate in the championship," said coach Bibi.

The players called up to form part of the pre-selection are actually training six days a week. Training sessions take place in the morning and afternoon.

When school resumes next week, they will still train the same number of times (from Monday to Saturday) from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The 15 players – nine boys and seven girls – on the pre-selection are Sam Betsy, Allen Low, Ivan Leong, Mervin Ernesta, Kevin Ghislain, Angelo Larue, Joel Dubel, Joel Albert, Richie Course, Danielle Jupiter, Thelma Betsy, Thyra Laporte, Sylvie Gamatis, Cynthia Course, Ranic Benoit and Allistar Camille. 

It is to note that in 2001, Catherina Paulin, then aged 17 years old, won the ladies' singles bronze medal of the 5th All-Africa Junior Championship held in Zambia.

She whitewashed Mauritian Sharma Aboobakar 3-0 (7-1 7-5 7-1) in the semifinal and in the final, she clashed with South African Michelle Edwards and lost 0-3 (2-7 2-7 0-7).

C. J.