World Championship logo released

The Yonex-Sunrise World badminton championship, to be held here from August 10 to 16, will be used as a perfect platform to upgrade the Gopi Chand-Nimmagadda Badminton Academy here into one of the top three training centres in the world, V.K. Verma, Vice-President, Badminton World Federation (BWF), said.


Speaking at the release of the logo of the championship here on Monday, Mr. Verma said that a high-level delegation of the BWF would inspect the academy before taking a decision in this regard.

“Right now, Indonesia and China boast of the top two training centres and we are optimistic that Gopi’s academy will join the group,” he said.

Mr. Verma added Hyderabad was the right choice to host the World Championship since the leading shuttlers in men’s and women’s sections — World No. 12 Chetan Anand and World No. 7 Saina Nehwal — hail from the City. “Even in doubles combinations, Hyderabad has given us Jwala Gutta, who along with V. Diju, are World No. 9 in mixed doubles,” he said.
Ticketing

Mr. Verma, who is also the president of Badminton Association of India (BAI), said that ticketing would be introduced during the World Championship with ‘ticketcounters.com’ handling the job. “The ticket sales for overseas fans will commence this weekend and for Indians by July-end,” he said. “Intelligent Risks, an Australian firm, will take care of the security aspect. In fact, the positive first-level report of the agency submitted to the BWF was why Hyderabad got the green signal to host the event.

“There are no apprehensions on any aspect and we believe that it will be a true curtain-raiser for the next year’s Commonwealth Games,” Mr. Verma said. He also thanked the sponsors Yonex-Sunrise for giving a guarantee to bear the complete cost of the event which should ensure that the BAI doesn’t end up in any loss.

Saina and V. Radha, SAAP VC & MD, officially released the logo. Radha said that the State Government would extend its help to the organisers by providing everything they needed to successfully host the event.

“It is an honour to host the World Championship and we deem it as our responsibility to make it a success,” she said.

Later, Mr. Verma formally presented the Most Promising Player of 2008 award to Saina.

courtesy:Hindu