DUBAI // The UAE might not yet have a badminton federation, but the sport’s international governing body is confident the staging of their season-ending BWF Destination Dubai World Superseries Finals in Dubai for the next four years will give the sport a boost and lead to the formation of a national association.
The Finals is the culmination of the 12-stop Super Series, with the top eight from the Destination Dubai rankings in five categories – men’s and women’s singles and doubles, and mixed doubles – making it to the finale.
This year’s Finals will take place at the Hamdan Sports Complex from December 17 to 21 with US$1 million (Dh3.67m), the sport’s biggest purse, up for grabs. It will mark the first time the final will be held outside east Asia.
The Super Series has four events still to be contested, but Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei is almost assured of his place in the final, given his 18,560-point lead over the man who beat him in the World Championships final last month, China's Chen Long.
The 2012 Olympic champion Li Xuerui, who lost to Spain's Carolina Marin in the World Championships finals, leads the women's singles, with former world No 1 Wang Shixian trailing by 6,060 points.
With leading stars such as these coming to Dubai for the next four years, Thomas Lund, secretary general of the Badminton World Federation (BWF), is confident the sport is ready for lift-off.
“There is a lot of work being done now at the grass-roots level with the ‘Shuttle Time’ programme that takes the sport into the schools,” he said on Tuesday.
“We’ll build that into competition level and at some point, there will be a UAE player who will be so good that he wants to go out and compete on the international circuit.
“That’s when we need to have the national set-up in place, a UAE association that is connected to the national Olympic committee.
“But I think we are doing pretty well. We signed a contract [with Dubai Sports Council] in March of this year, and I have been totally blown away by the work that has been done in respect of actually creating awareness around our sport. Participation is growing and I think we will get there, one step at a time.”
Ahmed Sharif, the secretary general of Dubai Sports Council, said the decision to bring the event to the country was made after a survey of residents showed badminton high on their list of favourites.
“We are working towards forming a badminton association,” he said. “The number of players and the competitions that are being organised in the country will decide when we are going to be expanding on the badminton organisational structure.”
arizvi@thenational.ae
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