TEXT BY BWF | Badminton Photo
Given that Canada have developed as a strong badminton nation in recent years, their performance at the BWF World Junior Championships 2022 should have caused no surprise. In both the team and the individual events, Canada showed they had exciting prospects who could go on to make strides on the senior circuit.
Head coach Mike Butler sounded satisfied as he reviewed the performance of his team at the World Juniors in October:
How do you look back on Canada’s campaign at the World Junior Championships?
I thought the team event went really well for Canada, winning five of seven. And then the other two (ties) were 3-2 losses to really good teams. This was my first real event with them this season. We had a training camp, but this was the first event for a while because of COVID, with the World Juniors (last year) being cancelled. I’m very pleased with the performance of the athletes. They really put everything out there and the results showed that. So yeah, I want to say there are good things ahead for our team.
Looking at the team’s performance, would you say the basic standard has been going up?
I think so, we have a very committed group of players. We have three levels: our senior team, our next-gen team, which are the ones just out of junior on the cusp of making the senior team, and then of course, this junior national team.
The depth is good; I love the team events, it kind of shows not just one player doing really well, it shows the depth of what we have here.
Josh (Nguyen) and Jackie (Dent) were among the big positives for Canada. Did they surprise you with the way they delivered?
I have a lot of respect for Josh (Nguyen) and his abilities. He played very, very well. Victor (Lai) is another one. So those two were our top two boys. But Viktor’s gone through some health issues, so that’s why maybe the singles results weren’t great, although he played a very good opponent. But yes, Josh played very well here in the singles. They’re the ones that we relied on for the team event as well.
I love how Jackie (Dent) fights, her determination. It comes out, you can see that on the court as well. She’s performed tremendously well, singles and doubles. We counted on her a lot for the team events. She was almost flawless. I have great hopes for her as well. And the determination and mental toughness is going to carry her through a lot.
Our women’s doubles did really well. So Christina (Lin), with Jackie, and then Chloe (Hoang) with Jessica (Cheng), they’ve done tremendously well, and not just the individual but the team event as well. I was able to rely on them a lot.
Some of the players were talking of how much of a difference the World Junior Championships in Markham in 2018 made to them, in terms of inspiring them to pursue badminton.
I love the fact we’re able to host big events in Canada, you get your home crowd feel, not having to travel and all the time changes that go with it. It was a great event for everything. The World Juniors is a long event, with the individual and team events, and a cultural day… So yeah, I was thrilled when we had it. I know that there lots of things to take away from the World Juniors and I love seeing our best in their age category play the best in the world, see how they perform. And I’m very pleased how that’s gone during this event.
The Canada Open has been upgraded for the next World Tour cycle. What will that mean for this generation of young players?
We’re thrilled that happened. Then you have the US Open right next to it. it’s going to be a really, really strong field next year. This year we had quite a few Canadians in the draw, but it’s going to be very challenging to get the numbers that we had this year, it’s probably going to be cut in half, because it’s going to be so competitive getting into those events, because of its elevation, and Olympic qualifying.
Canada has been emerging as a power, with some young, talented players in the seniors as well…
Wendy (Zheng), Talia (Ng), Rachel (Chan)… and of course Brian Yang on the boys’ side is our great hope. We have some doubles going on as well as they’re really working hard to try to qualify for the Olympics.
We were one of the few countries that had representatives for all disciplines. So we’re really proud and happy but that we’re trying to repeat that, and (also) look at the Sudirman Cup coming up. We want to try to qualify for that but the United States is doing quite well right now. So we have to be on our ‘A’ game.
What can we look forward to from Canadian badminton over the next couple of years?
Well, the Olympics is coming up in 2024. We’re trying to repeat the number of athletes who qualified and of course get results as well. There’s always room for improvement with results. The Olympics is the pinnacle for our senior athletes and what they want to try to achieve. But I also I love this type of (World Junior) event… we were so close to making top eight. And so that’s a great goal for next year. I think the majority of the players will be back next year, with the exception of three or four of this team. So that bodes well for us.
