Road to Rio Program was a program that provided all the possible technical and some financial support to selected African badminton players who have the possibility to qualify for the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

. The project was a collaboration between

Badminton Confederation of Africa The Badminton Confederation Africa (BCA) (formerly known as Badminton Confederation of Africa) is the governing body of badminton in Africa. It is one of the 5 continental bodies under the flag of the Badminton World Federation (BWF). It now has ...

and

Badminton World Federation The Badminton World Federation (BWF) is the international governing body for the sport of badminton recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was founded in 1934 as the International Badminton Federation (IBF) with nine member ...

. The program was exclusively for singles players as it would be difficult to qualify for the doubles events.

Background

During a meeting which was held with the selected players and their coaches in

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

, Ian Wright the development director of the BWF explained that the BWF wants to help more African to qualify for the next Olympic Games and this is why the BWF/BCA are investing a lot of resources to achieve this objective. Mr. Wright also added that it is a must that all the National Federations commit to this program by respecting the different criteria that will be set by the BWF/BCA. For instance, National Federation should respect deadlines for entering their players in the selected tournaments and also provide necessary information for visa and other purposes in time. On the other hand, the players should also provide their training details and their availability until the Olympic Games in 2016.

Training Camp

The selected players had their first training camp in

Gaborone Gaborone ( , , ) is the capital and largest city of Botswana with a population of 246,325 based on the 2022 census, about 10% of the total population of Botswana. Its agglomeration is home to 421,907 inhabitants at the 2011 census. Gaboron ...

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...

. After the end of the 2013

Botswana International The Botswana International is an open badminton tournament held in Gaborone, Botswana. The tournament has been an International Series level, except in 2012 and since 2018 categorized as Future Series level from Badminton World Federation. Pre ...

, the training camp was moved to

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Selected Players

The following were the 14 players selected for the Road to Rio Program: Male Players Female Players

Result

Jacob Maliekal and Kate Foo Kune represented their respective nations at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. Both players won one game during the group stage and ended up second in their groups, thus did not qualify for the knockout round. * Jacob Maliekal * Kate Foo Kune

References

{{Authority control Badminton World Federation Badminton in Africa