Badminton: President’s Invitational this weekend

The quest to do well at this year’s African championships and gain qualifications to the world championships later in the year gets underway this weekend when the Badminton Association of Ghana (BAG) stages the President’s Invitational championship at the D.G. Hathiramani Hall of the Accra Sports Stadium.

According to Ignatius Elletey, Secretary General of BAG, the 2-day tournament scheduled for Friday and Saturday would be used to assess the current standard of national team players, identify new players and subsequently select players to form the various national teams who will represent Ghana at continental and international tournaments later this year.

“Last year was quite good in the sense that we executed some of our programmes like successfully organising a national championship to assess our players. We also organized officiating course and can now boast 20 umpires and line judges who can officiate local games. We also participated and won a medal for Ghana at the All Africa Games in Mozambique,” said Mr. Elletey who was himself elected to the Badminton Confederation of Africa Council in the year under review.

This year, he says, Ghana will represent at the African Championship in Ethiopia in February as national players seek to gain points for their rankings unlike last year when due to a lack of funds, the nation was not represented for which players’ rankings dropped.

The President’s Invitational will be competed for by players from all over the country and will have competitions in Seniors (Top 10 men and Top 8 women), U-19 (Top 8 boys and top 6 girls) as well as U-15 (top 8 boys and top 7 girls).

Sponsors include Ghana Port and Harbours Authority, Kalmar West Africa Services, Safebond Africa, Golden Gate Stevedoring, Key Port Management, Sir Lab Stevedoring and Meridian Port Services, all based in Tema.