Up to 250 student badminton players from all over Ireland, the UK and Europe converged on the University of Limerick Sports Arena last weekend for the fourth annual Irish International Students Badminton Tournament.
The Irish ISBT is organised by students, for students. Badminton-playing students, alumni and members of universities competed in four skills sections, ranging social players to top national league standard.
Similar tournaments take place all over Europe. The first ISBT was hosted in the Netherlands 21 years ago by the DIOK Badminton Club of the Universiteit Twente in Enschede, in a bid to promote the sport of badminton and its social aspects of.
Last weekend’s tournament, said Mary Browne Director of Development & Coach Education with Badminton Ireland, could not have gone ahead without the help of a string of volunteers, spearheaded by Emma Lindqvist, Youth Leadership Development Officer with BI.
They have been working on the organisation since spring. The tournament format reached Ireland in 2004, and since then it has been held in Limerick.Ivor Guiney, club captain of the UL Badminton club, said: “It was a privilege to have one of the main international student tournaments in UL for the fourth year running. The fact that it was booked out shows the enormous level of interest from all around Europe in coming to Limerick to play in the fantastic facilities we have here.”
Indeed, according to Ivor, there are rumours afoot that the Malaysian team is considering UL as a pre-Olympic acclimatizing camp before the London games in 2012.
Badminton is thriving locally with 11 clubs active in both Limerick city and county.
Ivor explained: “We’ve got 192 members on the books off and on, playing from Division 2-6 in Limerick. We are also entering a team in the Intervarsities and attending ISBTs in Cologne and Oslo. Anyone is welcome to join—the more members we have the better!”
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