XX Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland |30 July 2014

Badminton players show potential in individual competition

The Seychelles’ male badminton players looked good in their round-of-64 matches yesterday where both Steve Malcouzane and Georgie Cupidon recorded 2-0 wins before earning a win in the men’s doubles.

All three wins were recorded during yesterday’s sixth day of competition at the ongoing Commonwealth games in Glasgow, Scotland.

Malcouzane’s win came against Douglas Clark from the Falkland Islands. Malcouzane took an early 5-1 lead in the first set only to see his opponent crawl back and keep the tie level throughout. Malcouzane eventually won the first set 21-19. The second set was much easier although at the start the scores were quite close. In the end Malcouzane sealed the win with a 21-14 victory to advance to the next round where he will face Jeff Tho of Australia today.

Cupidon had a much easier time against Norfolk Islands’ Michael Donohoe. Cupidon dominated the first set, dropping only three points to win 21-3. In the second set, things continued along the same way although Donohoe scored eight points this time, which meant Cupidon won the set 21-8 to complete a 2-0 victory. He will now face Derek Wong of Singapore today.

Malcouzane and Cupidon then teamed up for the men’s doubles where they faced Christopher Eynon and Dominic Jaffray from Falkland Islands. The Seychelles duo managed to take an easy 2-0 (21-13, 21-11) win with Malcouzane leading the charge. They now face Guernsey’s Stuart Hardy and Daniel Penney in the round-of-32.

On the women’s side, Juliette Ah-Wan fought hard but was unable to avoid defeat against Pakistan’s Palwasha Bashir. Bashir won the first set 21-15, but Ah-Wan fought back to win the second 21-19. In the decisive third set Bashir held on to win 21-15 to send Ah-Wan out of the women’s singles event.

In table tennis, the result was not as encouraging as both Anniessa Benstrong and Laura Sinon suffered defeats in their preliminary round matches.

Benstrong’s losses came against Megan Phillips of Wales and Dominica’s Larrysa Dover. Against Phillips, Benstrong won the first set 13-11 which was a good start, but her opponent then came back to win  the next four sets – 11-2, 12-10, 11-7 and 11-9 – for a 4-1 victory.

In her second match, Benstrong was dominated by Dover as she lost 0-4 (1-11, 4-11, 4-11, 6-11).

Laura Sinon was also in action, losing 0-4 (3-11, 4-11, 7-11, 3-11) against Malaysia’s Ho Ying and in her second match, she faced Kenya’s Della Mgenya Njani, where despite providing a stronger resistance, it was not enough from stopping her from losing 0-4 (9-11, 2-11, 8-11, 9-11).

Meanwhile, despite her third place finish in group A on Monday in weightlifting, Janet Georges could only manage a 10th place overall finish in the 69kg category after registering an Olympic total of 180kg (85kg in snatch and 95kg in clean & jerk). The gold medal was won by Marie Fegue from Cameroon who lifted am Olympic total of 234kg (102kg in snatch and 132kg in clean & jerk).

For the men, Terence Dixie finished 13th overall in the men’s 85kg category with a total lift of 267kg (122kg in snatch and 145kg in clean & jerk). The gold medal went to Richard Patterson of New Zealand who managed to lift 151kg in snatch and 184 in clean & jerk for a 335kg total.

Text  Sedrick Nicette in Glasgow