Collegiate badminton pre-season tilt up

- Advertisement -

BY ABBY TORALBA

COLLEGIATE squads will get the chance to show their worth in the Philippine Intercollegiate Badminton Championships set next month.

The Philippine Badminton Association-backed tilt will be held from Sept. 10 and 11 at the Centro Atletico in Cubao and will serve as a pre-season tournament for collegiate shuttlers before their respective leagues open.

- Advertisement -

“This is actually a launch of tournaments for badminton, officially under Philippine Badminton Association. Of course, we started with the collegiate ranks, the university teams being there also preparing for their own collegiate tournaments,” PBA secretary-general Christopher Quimpo Quimpo said yesterday at the Gloria Maris Greenhills in San Juan City.

“We have some confirmation from some of the universities. This will be very exciting and, of course, for us in the badminton industry, this is a very good welcome to start playing badminton again (post-pandemic),” he added.

Also present in the launch were PBA vice president and PLDT/Smart head of sports Jude Turcuato, Smart Communications first vice president for Go-To-Market Melvin Nubla and Cagayan de Oro councilor and Philippine Intercollegiate Badminton Championships project director Imee Moreno.

According to Moreno, they have invited several universities and colleges from the UAAP, NCAA and SCAA to participate in the tourney that will feature action in men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.

The champion will bring home P50,000 and a trophy, while the first runner will pocket P20,000 and medals, and the two 2nd runner-up teams will bag P10,000 each and medals.

Moreno said that the main objective of the competition is to “give another avenue to our athletes, in our collegiate level, in universities because as we all know here in the Philippines there are very few avenues where they can enhance and hone their skills or be an avenue where — that can serve as their training ground. So, this is one way of helping alleviate or improve the skills of our athletes.”

The PBA also hopes to hold the competition annually, expand to include provincial sectors, and help athletes gain points internationally to qualify for the Olympics.

“Ang goal talaga namin is to, number one, improve and grow the national team. We are now starting to send our national team to international competitions because iyon ang naging kulang within the last few years,” Turcuato said.

“In order for us to be ranked on the world stage, in order for us to qualify for the Olympics, we need to earn points and we don’t earn points unless we compete in international tournaments.”

Author

- Advertisement -

Share post: