12-day feast of badminton begins

JOHN HAWKINS/Southland Times

HITTING OUT: New Zealand badminton representatives Donna Haliday and Henry Tam train in Invercargill in the leadup to the Oceania Festival of Badminton starting in the city on Monday.

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If you're a badminton nut in Invercargill it doesn't get much bigger than February 2010.

The city will go a little badminton giddy from Monday, when the 12-day Oceania Festival of Badminton is held in southern New Zealand.

Representatives from New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Tahiti and New Caledonia will converge on Invercargill for the event.

The 12-day festival will include a training camp, events course Oceania AGM, Thomas Cup and Uber Cup teams competitions and senior and junior individual tournaments.

Invercargill's Nigel Skelt, who is the vice-president of world badminton, said the festival would the biggest badminton event the city had ever seen.

He said about 200 players and officials were expected to travel to Invercargill for the event.

Already the New Zealand mixed doubles pairing of Henry Tam and Donna Haliday, along with fellow New Zealand representatives Anna Rankin and James Eunson, are in Invercargill training with coach Thana Arikrishnan.

The playing side of the festival will be a big step towards world championship and Commonwealth Games selection this year.

Badminton Southland underwent a big upgrade to its Surrey Park complex last year, when the concrete floors were replaced with a state-of-the-art wooden surface.

The Oceania Festival will give Badminton Southland the ideal chance to showcase the training complex as they attempt to get more events in the south.

During the Oceania Festival, players will train at the Surrey Park hall and head across the carpark to Stadium Southland for their matches.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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