Manitoba Badminton Association – Eighty-four players descended on the Winnipeg Winter Club April 26 – 29, to compete for the Provincial Badminton title. 

After a great weekend of exciting matches, Thien bao Vo was declared the Men’s Singles winner for the third year in a row after beating Felix Tessier in the final. He was also declared the Men’s Doubles winner with his partner Tommy McKee who is from Fort Frances, Ontario. Vo will be competing at the Canadian Junior Nationals in Burlington next week as the Number 2 seed in the country. On the women’s side of the competition, Melissa Liew was crowned the Singles winner after knocking off the second seed Tiffany Tantakoun in a close match with scores of 21-14, 18-21 and 21-16 to advance to the final. She won over Hanna Rebizant, the number one seed, 21-15 and 21-18 in the final. Liew has won the singles title once before in 2016. Liew also won the Doubles title with her partner Trinh Nguyen over Hanna Rebizant and Tiffany Tantakoun. The final match of the weekend saw Dale Kinley and Katherine Lee triumph over Paul Brown and Jeanette Ding 21-14 and 21-18 in order to win the Mixed Doubles title for the second year in a row. 

Saturday evening saw everyone putting away their badminton racquets and paying tribute to some of the special people involved with badminton in the province at the 25th Annual Awards Banquet.
Two Sportsmanship awards were given out to Ian Abbott and Queenie Sayson, both from Winnipeg, who are both great people on and off the court. They both love the sport and play with enthusiasm and a smile.

The Outstanding Achievement Award was given to Arnish Patel of Winnipeg who has been a member of the Canadian Junior National Team this past season. Patel has competed nationally in several tournaments this past year including Canadian Nationals as well as being picked to represent Canada at the Pan Am Junior Championships in Ontario last summer.

Sylvio Tessier received the Past President’s Award for his service on the Board of Directors of Badminton Manitoba. Sylvio was president of the Board for 3 years and served in other capacities for 3 years before becoming President. 

For coaching, the Archie Chawla Coaching Achievement Award went to Brad Stevenson from Brandon who coached Team West at the Manitoba Winter Games in March. His dedication this season to the athletes on the Winter Games team was amazing. He not only ran practices for his team but also took them to several tournaments around the province and enjoyed helping each one of them to grow and develop as athletes.

The Connie Blamey Distinguished Contribution Award went to Renee Kunka of Winnipeg who has spent an incredible amount of time this past year running the Manitoba Adult Badminton League as well as being part of the 2019 Canada Winter Games Committee. On top of this she also was Team Manager for Team Winnipeg Blue at the Manitoba Winter Games. Renee can always be counted on to help out in the badminton community.

Full results of the tournament can be found at http://badmintoncanada.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draws.aspx?id=F6DE67AB-5CB6-4F90-B231-082DAB5CF503. It was a great weekend of badminton to round out a great season overall.
Photos from the tournament and banquet are available by contacting Ryan Giesbrecht.

For more information, please contact:

Ryan Giesbrecht
Executive Director, Manitoba Badminton Association
(204) 226-0813
ryan@badminton.mb.ca