Fast footwork and upper body control were two of the elements spectators were able to see during last week’s Team Manitoba badminton games.
Coach Justin Friesen brought 12 hopeful Team Manitoba badminton athletes to Flin Flon last week as a showcase to increase popularity in the sport.
Spectators watched as the top athletes played each other at École McIsaac School.
The athletes took to the courts Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the day for training and then played each other on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
When the dozen athletes weren’t on the court training they were working together, and with the community, on team building exercises like canoeing.
Area residents and those eager to pick up tricks of the trade were able to join the athletes in their team building exercises.
Fast paced
Friesen says a misconception about badminton is that it’s a “backyard paddy cake sport.”
But Team Manitoba took to the courts in McIsaac to prove otherwise.
“There’s a lot of really highly competitive physical demands of the sport,” said the coach.
“There’s a lot of really specific movement patterns that you have to get used to.”
Friesen, who played badminton in high school and then later for the University of Winnipeg, says badminton is the lone racket sport that doesn’t allow for bounces.
“In tennis and table tennis you have time before it bounces, but here you don’t, so you have to react really quickly and get ready to move,” he said.
“There’s a lot more hitting upward shots and using trajectory and angles,” he said, adding that players are constantly jumping around.
“It’s a really explosive sport.”
Friesen says these elements of the game are noticeable when a high-intensity men’s double is being played.
“Even though their feet are moving really fast their upper bodies are moving slowly and in control,” the coach says.
Perception
“Most [people] think it’s a backyard game you play at the cabin and they don’t see the intensity,” said Friesen, as he hopes others see the physical demands the sport brings.
Badminton is most often considered an individual sport.
And like any other individual sport, badminton can be taken as competitively as the athletes chooses.
There are opportunities to compete at the provincial level as well as regional and national.
“It’s a sport you can play for a lifetime,” said the coach, as he pointed out one of the athletes in Winnipeg is 95 years old and continues to compete.
“He’s still playing and competing and loving it,” Friesen said.
Training Camp
The games and practices in Flin Flon were considered a training camp for the badminton athletes for the Power Smart Winter Games.
A dozen athletes made it to the community last week as others were unable to make the trek.
Team Manitoba will have its final selections made by the end of next month and will carry 10 athletes to the Winter Games.
