Amy Ackerman and Deidré Laurens recently took part in the All-African Badminton Championships and have managed to get their world ranking to 75 which will help on their road to the Paris Olympics.
South Africa (24 February 2023) – Amy Ackerman and Deidré Laurens spent 2022 working to get a ranking below 100 and they have managed it! The ladies play doubles in Badminton and hope to represent South Africa at the Olympics in 2024.
Amy and Deidré have been included in the Badminton Confederation of Africa’s (BCA) “Road to Paris” (RTP) programme. This programme has identified Africa’s most promising badminton players that show potential to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France. Their inclusion in the programme followed their success at the African Championships held in February 2022, where they achieved a silver medal.
Currently, Badminton South Africa (BSA) is underfunded however, the federation has secured sponsorship from Yonex South Africa and Shuttle Starts Badminton. The federation has been assisting the players involved in the RTP programme and funded the team’s participation in the 2022 and now 2023 All-Africa Championships. This great news for the sport in South Africa.
The objective of the RTP programme is to facilitate the attendance of these players at several African, Pan-American and other international tournaments to boost their world ranking with Badminton World Federation (BWF). To qualify for the Olympics, players will need to be ranked number one in their discipline (singles/doubles/mixed doubles) in Africa and among the top 50 in the world.
When Amy and Deidré started in 2022, they didn’t have a ranking. They spent the year taking part in as many tournaments as possible with the goal of ranking below 100.
South Africa hosted the 2023 edition of the All African Badminton Championships earlier this month at the John Barrable Hall in Benoni, Johannesburg. Fourteen African countries got together to play against each other.
“Jared Elliot and Robert White, and Amy Ackerman and Deidré Laurens, ended the tournament victorious in the men’s and women’s doubles, while Johanita Scholtz claimed silver as runner-up in the women’s singles.
The women’s duo went into the event seeded second in Africa and beat three seeded pairs to be crowned champions without dropping a single set.
Ackerman and Laurens each added a bronze to their spoils in the mixed doubles partnered by Elliott and White, respectively, while team South Africa came away with a collective bronze in the mixed team event.
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Currently ranked 75th in the world, the national team has its sights set on getting well into the top five, an improvement that could gain it entry into the 2024 Paris Olympics.” – Samantha Choles
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