“This is a fantastic opportunity to bring two quality players to BC. This event meets two goals - the first being to raise money for our National Team to go to the Worlds and secondly, a chance to sharpen our focus going into the Worlds. “ says Darryl Yung, founder of ClearOne Sports and 1996 Olympian. Yung is the personal coach of three national team athletes going to the Worlds in August – Toby Ng and Derrick Ng of Vancouver and Adrian Liu of Prince Rupert.
Brock Turner, CEO of Badminton BC commented, “We had the Racket Rally in April 2009 where we had a former Olympic and World Champion and world-ranked players participating. This is second event in less than 6 months shows that British Columbia is becoming the place in Canada for high performance Badminton.”
Howard Bach and Tony Gunawan, 2009 US 2005 World Champions and Members of the US National Team along with a selection of athletes from Korea, China and the USA will be competing against Canada’s best Men’s Doubles players. Bach and Gunawan were the first US players in many years to take the explosive Men’s Doubles event at the 2005 World Championship. After the 2005 Worlds, Bach and Gunawan played a few tournaments and then went their separate ways. They are now back together and moving up the world rankings and as of July 23, the Badminton World Federation had them ranked at 54th in the world. At #53, Canadian Will Milroy and BC’s own Toby Ng have been also moving up the rankings and will be part of the team going to the Worlds.
Gunawan, a naturalized US citizen, is originally from Indonesia and is considered to be one of the best men’s doubles players ever with a World title, an Olympic Champion plus winning two major titles – All England and the Thomas Cup – the Men’s World Team Championship.
After opening its first facility in 2003, ClearOne Sports Ltd currently manages two Badminton facilities in Richmond, ClearOne and ClearTwo. Founded by 1996 Olympian Darryl Yung, the two facilities have grown to 25 courts with private lessons provided by Yung and by his staff of international level players and local coaches.
Badminton BC is the provincial sport governing body for Badminton. Started in 1925, BBC’s goal is to open all people to the world of Badminton. The slogan of BBC is “Building Champions from the grassroots to the Olympics” shows the focus of openness and inclusivity. As the gateway sport to other racquet sports plus being a core activity for all children, Badminton provides essential skills for many types of lifelong activities including playing the sport from a child to the sunset years.
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For more information on this event, please contact:
Brock Turner, CEO Bob Milroy
Badminton BC ClearOne Sports
604-828-5075 778-866-6965