Birmingham, England, August 7, 2022
2022 COMMONWEALTH GAMES: HOW COMMONWEALTH GAMES DEBUTANT ALPHOUS AND TORNYENYOR GRADUATED FROM GHANA BADMINTON’S SCHOOLS PROGRAMME
Many will not have come to terms with how two Ghanaian professional Badminton athletes, Cindy Etornam Tornyenyor and Kelvin Evans Alphous, ended up at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Birmingham competing in Singles and Doubles Event for Badminton.
Having reflected from a 2017 journey for Kelvin Evans Alphous, where he began his badminton career in his Senior Secondary School days at the Swedru School of Business led by the late Ebenezer Affaidu as his Coach. Ebenezer Affaidu was a Badminton Coach from the Shuttle Time Course in 2017/2018 under the Ghana Badminton Schools Project, educating and training teachers across the country.
In 2019, Alphous took part in national events and graduated onwards through national team selections, climbing on a part of growth towards his Commonwealth and Paris 2024 Olympic Qualification.
Alphous shared, “I can’t believe I am playing on a high level with some of the world’s advanced players. It’s a dream come true from me, and I am excited about it. In between the Olympics, there is nothing compared to the Commonwealth Games. It holds a special place in our sports ecosystem. The Games exposed me to big championships and multi-sport events. Coming from a village near Agona Swedru is a privilege, and this will inspire me to do more in my sports career.”
The programme graduated 273 Physical Education Teachers from 198 Schools nationwide in 2017, mastering a whopping coverage of schools nationwide. The current Board launched the second phase of the Mission 2025 Plan in 2022, focussing on sustaining and building long-term growth is getting schools to embrace badminton.
Cindy Tornyenyor Shared, “Never saw me be here, in Birmingham, England, competing with the world’s best. I watch players and frequently matches on TV and YouTube, and I am glad it feels rekindling like ages ago. Still, I will use that experience gained here and hopefully carry on with the scholarship that Ghana Badminton gave me to continue to shine at the international level.”
Ghana Badminton, President shares, “We are enthralled by our enhanced development initiatives across technical and coaching education spanning from a school’s project we implemented promoting a thriving sporting system of inspiring positive change thus creating most tremendous decade success of extraordinary sporting achievement by the end of 2027.
Right from 2017, the development team for Badminton in Ghana had partnered with various stakeholders in Ghana and across Africa under the guidance of the Badminton World Federation to ensure that students in both secondary and primary schools participate in activities related to the Badminton sport. The Schools projects are entry-level schools and programs for the school’s club Badminton, graduating into inter-schools, super zonal and the national schools and colleges competition.
The project course educates coaches on how to instil badminton lessons in children aged between 6 to 15 years in a fun and safe way. Participants gain basic knowledge in the coaching of Badminton, enabling physical Education and community club coaches to learn and teach beginning athletes of the sport to graduate toward podium results on the world stage.
The National Federation in Ghana is working on getting Badminton offered for young people in 512 additional community venues and being played in 3,212 more schools -primary, secondary, and tertiary (teacher training, universities, etc.) by 2025 and providing a new school-club link programme that will offer a sustainable partnership with all schools.
Ranked 185 in the World Juniors ranking, Cindy Etornam Tornyenyor also graduated from the school’s programme in 2018. Having attended West Africa Senior High School and led into Badminton by Mr Emmanuel Otoo of Adenta Badminton Club, her pivotal journey of Badminton began in this endeavour, causing spiral training and focus on the national level.
In 2019, Cindy Etornam Tornyenyor continued and represented the Greater Accra Region at the National Schools and Colleges, Bolgatanga sports and achieved podium results. Tornyenyor laments her best role model is to be in the World’s top 50 ranked players by 2027 from now and make Ghana Badminton proud again in the Women’s Single and Women’s Double events.
Nothing compared to this year’s Commonwealth Games brings memories of how our Badminton in Schools project, which aggressively started in 2017, has survived, and we are progressively reaching out to each school in Ghana. Ghana Badminton made its seventh appearance at the Commonwealth Games after its debut in the 1998 Games held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ghana competed in Athletes, Badminton, Boxing, Cycling, Judo, Beach Volleyball, Aquatics, Squash, Triathlon, Table Tennis, Weightlifting, Hockey and 2 Para Sporting Disciplines, with Boxing winning 2 Silver and one Bronze medals and athletics, winning 2 Bronze for Ghana.
The Commonwealth Games is a multi-sport event with a fully integrated programme of para-sports disciplines, and this year’s Games was extra unique with packed stadiums and arenas after Tokyo 2020 took place behind closed doors. Birmingham 2022 had the largest female and para-sports programme in history after a new discipline of Women’s T20 Cricket, Beach Volleyball, and Para Table Tennis were confirmed.
ENDS
About Ghana Badminton
We are Ghana Badminton, the Governing Body of Badminton in Ghana, formed in 1962. We are the supreme national sports governing body with regulatory functions for the Olympic Sport of Badminton in Ghana. We do this by preparing and implementing a vision and strategic plan for the national sport and determining how it will be implemented nationally, regionally, and locally.
With Olympic success at the heart of our ambitions, we are investing our knowledge and expertise in rebuilding build a quality future for our sport by strengthening and developing the domestic game and developing talent to achieve success on the international stage, inspiring the next generation of players and local fans and corporate community in line with the global vision of giving every child a chance to play for life by leading and inspire all stakeholders; to deliver entertainment through exciting events to drive fan experience; and to create innovative, impactful and sustainable development initiatives.
With thousands of Ghanaians playing yearly, badminton looks forward to being the nation’s favourite racket sport by 2024. We want to inspire everyone to play more, support louder and love badminton, from this generation to the next, as the world’s fastest racket sport.
Get Involved!
Websites: www.ghanabadminton.org
Facebook:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BadmintonGhana