Fiji Badminton Association

MEMBERSHIP -  Districts/Clubs
Suva and Lautoka remain the key badminton areas, governed by the current availability of suitable playing facilities. But we are also working on Nausori, Labasa and other parts of Fiji with Shuttle Time for Schools conducted by the Badminton Oceania Regional Development Officer, Kum On Tarawa and our own Development Officer, Sristi Nadan, who is based in Lautoka.

Badminton Fiji will from early 2021 embark on assisting individuals to set up clubs across Fiji. This will help fulfil an important objective within our Constitution and strengthen competition and development across the country as well as build on administrative arrangements within our sport.

Highlights

After two big years (2018 and 2019) in as far as international and national competitions were concerned, our Badminton calendar virtually hit a brick wall in 2020! We started the year with our senior team attending theOceania Championships in Ballarat, Australia, However, Covid 19 came along and shut us all down. Indeed 2020 was a relatively quiet year as far as completing our targeted calendar of events. However, we did manage to host the Fiji Open and Junior Nationals before year end. The two tournaments, which ran side by side over 4 days were a great success and enabled players to get back on court after a lengthy enforced break. The Fiji Nationals had 83 entries across two grades, while the Junior Nationals had 70 entries across 3 age groups – under19, under 15 and under 12 years.

On the positive side while the BOC RDO continues his great work with shuttle time delivery and liaison with the FNSC, Fiji Badminton has also put in place our own Development Officer, Sristi Nadan. Sristi will support Kum On(and has already started to do so with her first trip to the North in October)and also, being based in the west, it is hoped that she can raise awareness of the game there.

From October Fiji Badminton restarted its student programme at Yat Sen and it has been pleasing to see good numbers in attendance.  Fiji Badminton has also signed MOU’s withBadminton World Federation and Badminton Oceania and will receive funding going forward to complete a number of activities as we move into 2021. These activities center around shuttle time and the student after-school programme, junior player development, the National Championships and Air Badminton.  More support is also available for para badminton once we submit an agreed programme, which we are working on.

National Competitions Conducted

• 19-22 October:  Fiji Nationals, Yat Sen Hall, Suva - A Grade – 28 entries (14 male, 14 female) B Grade – 55 entries (36 male, 19 female)
• 19-22 October:  Fiji JuniorNationals, Yat Sen Hall, Suva - U19 years – 44 entries (28 male, 16 female) U15years – 15 entries (7 male, 8 female) U12 years – 11 entries (7 male, 4 female)

Activities in DevelopmentPrograms Conducted
An Oceania Foundation Coaching Course (October 2020) was organised by BadmintonOceania virtually from New Zealand for our development coaches based in theWestern, Northern and Central Divisions. This served as a bridging course to prepare Shuttle Time teachers and development players training to become coaches for the BWF (Badminton World Federation) Levelled Coaching Courses.

With support from the BWF and BOC, Badminton Fiji held two training camps targeting junior development squad players in January 2021. The two-weeklong camps ran simultaneously with one held in Suva and the other in Lautoka.The program comprised 2 x 2-hour sessions daily for 5 days, with an intent on getting players back on court in the new year and preparing them for future competitions.