Badminton tournament: Ghana, China dominate doubles as Japan’s Sakamato wins singles

A two-day badminton tournament ended last Sunday with Ghana and China affirming their positions as forces in the sport.

Ghana’s duo of Duo Noah Ayim and Felix Amasah were a class above their competitors as they pulled off a spirited comeback to beat the Chinese duo of Binbincal and Dong Lin Quing to win the men doubles trophy.

In the women’s double category, China’s Liu Quing and Yabing Shen grabbed the topmost spot with Jie Gao and Manxia Long coming second.

Ippei Sakamato of Japan defeated Ghana’s Felix Amasah to pick gold in the men’s singles category.

The six-nation tournament which was held at the DJ Hatramini Hall of the Accra Sports Stadium is targeted at enhancing the popularity of badminton in the country and also promote communal spirit among the various Asian countries in the country.

Interacting with the press at the end of the tournament, the President of the Ghana Badminton Association Evans Yeboah spoke of his satisfaction with the organization of the tournament and added the objective of the competition was achieved.

“It’s been insightful as we have brought all the various communities in Ghana to play the sport of badminton. As you may know badminton is a sport for all and this kind of activities help us to promote the sport. We have discussions to spread badminton to the sporting community and we’ve been doing a lot to promote the sport”, he said.

The Director of Operations for Kingdom Exim Group, headline sponsors of the competition hoped that just as football is the heartbeat of the country, badminton will in the near future assume similar position in the country.

“We will always like to create a platform for something which is not recognized here. We all know that in Ghana football is the most anticipated game so we decided to do this and promote the badminton so that one day it will get the same recognition as football”.