Having successfully conducted the Pan Am AirBadminton Championships 2024, Guatemala are pushing ahead with plans to popularise the sport in the country.
The tournament, held 13-14 April 2024, was the second AirBadminton continental championships in Pan Am, and were held alongside the XXVII YONEX Pan Am Individual Championships 2024.
As part of its strategy to make the sport widespread, a Pan Am Junior Championships (Under-17) and a national event will be held and local associations will start practicing AirBadminton.
El Salvador, winners of the women’s triples.
Daniel Humblers, Technical Director of Badminton Federation of Guatemala, was happy with the way the tournament had panned out. “I’m very happy to have had this continental event which we have been organising for some time now. We believe it’s a great opportunity for many people to see this sport of AirBadminton. Many people will be interested in being able to practice it. We have planned that departmental associations practice this sport. We want to make it widespread nationwide. We want to start with a national event this year. We had two days of great vibes.”
Brazil and El Salvador shared the spotlight from the tournament, which had three categories: mixed team relay, men’s triples and women’s triples.
Brazil’s mixed team relay squad.
El Salvador’s female triples team, participating for the first time, won the event, beating Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil to finish top of the table.
Their clash with Brazil in the last group encounter was effectively the final, for Brazil too had won both their two previous clashes. The El Salvador team of Daniela Victoria, Fatima and Margareth Gabriela beat Brazil’s Samia Lima, Tamire Santos and Jeisiane Alves 9-5 9-4 8-10 9-7.
El Salvador’s Daniela Hernandez was thrilled with her team’s victory: “When I started, badminton was in the open air. Then I played like this for a good part of my life. It has been quite interesting to practice it like this again. All the girls feel very happy for everything we did on the court. We had fun, we gave our best, it was very good. Thank you to my teachers and coaches and teammates.”
Brazil dominated the other two competitions – the mixed team relay and the men’s triples.
Brazil topped the table in the mixed team relay with an all-win record in the group over Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Their men’s triples squad kept a clean sheet in their four group encounters against Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador. Their toughest test was against Guatemala, when their team of Izak Barelha, Deivid Silva and Matheus Voigt were taken the distance by Ramiro Alonso, Axel Flores and Danilo Lopez 5-9 10-8 9-4 10-12 9-5.
Barelha said: “It’s very gratifying to achieve this. It’s another year of Brazil becoming champions, and it’s good for Brazil and badminton and this new sport of AirBadminton. It’s a very different sport as we play in the sand. I had fun and see other people having fun too, so this ends up attracting the public. I feel very excited and give it all on the sand.”
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