Jordan Truong was a little shorter than the other three doubles finalists at the Prince Rupert Badminton Club’s first-ever city-wide tournament. But there’s a good reason.
He’s more than 10 years younger than his partner, and more than 20 years younger than his opponents.
“I don’t know, it’s usually like that,” said Truong, who competes every Sunday and Wednesday nights with the club, and sometimes Thursdays to help with the juniors at the civic centre.
The youngster, who’s in his teens, hit the winning shot Saturday in the men’s doubles championship.
Truong and Phat Tran claimed the title in the all-day competition that had categories including men’s and women’s singles and youth buddies and singles.
“I do drills and I play almost every day,” he said, adding he likes having Tran as a partner because “he can run”.
“I weight-train sometimes at home for the wrist.”
Tournament organizer Kathy Liu pulled out all the stops including having a licensed referee supervise the matches, awarding certificates and posters to the winners and hosting a potluck dinner at the end of it all.
She even had her son, Adrian Liu attend the festivities, before he sets on his way to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland come July.
The auditorium was filled with the heavenly aroma of home-cooked dinners as the day winded down and the tournament organizers started setting up tables for the plentiful wealth of food waiting the hungry combatants.
Jonathan Barton and Tam Tran won the ‘B’ men’s doubles division and David Tran and Nigel Bozman claimed the ‘C’.
Phat took home the men’s singles’ top honour while Thai Pham and Tam won the men’s singles ‘B’ and ‘C’ divisions respectively.
Leona Truong took home first-place in women’s singles ‘A’ division and Cathy Young won the ‘B’.
Kathy Liu and Young teamed up to win women’s doubles, with Jean Page and Amy Dopson taking the ‘B’ throne. Salvy Callangan and Molly Mah won the ‘C’ women’s doubles division.
Simon and Andrew Bellis took the youth buddies’ championship and Carsen Vibert, Brendon Eshom and Simon Bellis won the ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C ‘youth singles titles respectively. Vibert and Eshom won youth doubles.
Kathy Liu hopes to repeat the event next year and thanks her sponsors for the support.
