2010 WUC Badminton Update: FISU & BWF Workshop

 Mr. Johansson, Mrs. Odell & Mr. Cabello

TAIPEI CITY – After the quarter-finals this morning, 11^th September 2010, the workshop took place on the 17^th floor in the Fullerton Hotel. The representatives of FISU, BWF, and delegates of twelve participating countries attended the workshop.

First, David Cabello, the Chair of Development Committee of World Badminton Federation welcomed all the participants. FISU Assessor Alison Odell also thanked the delegates who came to the workshop, and then started the introduction of FISU, explaining how FISU supervises and assists its members in all kind of sports affairs.  The representative of Chinese Taipei Badminton Association David Chang also thanked FISU for giving Taipei the chance to host this event. 

After the introduction Mrs. Alison Odell introduced to the audience the FISU structure, goals vision and strategy of the University Sports movement as well as the University badminton world. The presentation opened the space for further discussion.

Roger Johansson, the Chair of the Badminton FISU Technical Committee, did a briefly review of WUC Badminton.  Since FISU is working since the beginning of the WUC in cooperation with BWF and considered the possibility of badminton to be a compulsory sport in Summer Universiade in the future, participants discussed this issue.

When asked: “How can this championship be improved”, KOR suggested longer duration of the tournament so that players will not get exhausted because of a long day schedule.  IND suggested a more detailed register system and better cooperation and communication with the media.  Many teams suggested that BWF includes the World University Badminton Championship into the world ranking in order to attract more top players and teams to participate as well as to attract more spectators. 

After the discussion, David Cabello presented the BWF future strategies to develop Badminton in university.  BWF is now working hard to connect its members with national university sports federations. BWF also sets up badminton classes and courses and organizes competition in university at different levels in order to make badminton the best racquet sport in university.

Before the workshop came to an end, participants also talked about how their countries support their players both in training and education. The representatives of FISU and BWF will collect all the opinions and hand it to the FISU Executive Committee and to the BWF Council respectively. Although the workshop lasted only for two hours, the suggestion given today will definitely make contributions to the future of badminton.         

(Source: OC)