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Accra-Ghana August 3, 2022

COMMONWEALTH GAMES: ALPHOUS/NANTUO SEAL THREE MATCHES VICTORY ON FIRST DAY OF KNOCKOUT STAGE FOR GHANA BADMINTON

The quest for a medal glory for Ghana will spur up for badminton as the Golden Shuttlers begun a quest to register a debut three wins today at the Ongoing 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, United Kingdom

Whilst the three event wins from Team Ghana makes a strong start to progress in events at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham NEC Arena and to qualify for the next knock-out stage. The talented squad did not get a wrong foot in their first three matches to win against Zambia, Sierra Leone, and Falkland Islands.

The golden shuttlers faced a swift return to action with the singles competitions with Ahmed Abdul SAMAD dismantling his Sierra Leonean opponent with a 21-1, 21-1 on the opening day of the Badminton Ghana Matches, in front of a raucous crowd at the NEC Hall. Samad will thus meet with Ajfan RASHEED of Maldives in the round of 32.

The women’s double fledgling pair of TORNYENYOR/NANTUO combination saw Ghana pull apart the Falkland Islanders country from Latin America. The better ranked Falkland Islands female duo fell with a score of 21-17, 22-20 making the Ghanaian female squad progress to the next round igniting a meetup with RICHARDSON Tahlia / WYNTER Katherine from Jamaica in the next round.

Ghana lost the first Mix Double pair of TORNYENYOR/TAMAKLOE to Mauritius, whilst Aaron Tamakloe suffered a defeat from Pakistan’s Men’s Singles Player in the rounds of the match.

The Second Mix Double event became a thriller as Ghana’s best Mix Double pair in ages showed brilliance and over-powered the African highly ranked Mix Double pair from Zambia. The Ghanaian pair beat the Zambians with a score line of 21-19, 21-14, thus progressing to the next stage of the competition.

ALPHOUS was in great form and his devastating combination of powerful smashes and delicate drop shots proved too good for the day and with NANTUO taking great confidence from a solid run that saw the pair win to the admiration and support of the crowd at the 10,000-seater NEC Hal Arena.

“I know the needed to grow courage going into this game as we were not familiar with the Zambian’s, but I actually think I played a lot better in the second set,” ALPHHOUS said.

“It is a game of momentum and although I’d be good, we had different Game plans to counter the opponents, which changed the dynamic of the match, and we think that was the big difference today” Remarked NANTUO

Coach Moses Adu, Ahmed Abdul Samad, Kelvin Evans Alphous (Captain), Cindy Esi Etornam Tornyenyor, Prospera Nantuo, and Aaron Dromo Tamakloe leads the players to represent the National Badminton Team, in 2022 Commonwealth Games-Golden Shuttlers and capitalise on the once in a lifetime opportunity to bring home success for the first time in our own country.

After the national selection criteria, the Badminton players represented Team Ghana across Singles, Doubles, Mixed Doubles Events

That result sealed Ghana’s progression to the next important round, tomorrow, August 4, 2022, with six matches for the right to earn close to a medal in front of a passionate home crowd.

For full details and the badminton schedule, visit: Badminton (birmingham2022.com)

ENDS

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

July 18, 2022-TEAM GHANA ANNOUNCES BADMINTON TEAM SET TO COMPETE AT 2022 COMMONWEALTH GAMES.

Nantuo Prospera celebrates a point at the African Championship

The Ghana Badminton Association (BAG) has officially named its squad for the upcoming 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

The team includes several high-performance players in the National Federation’s 2024 High-Performance Programme.

The six-man team of four men and two women would compete in all five events of Badminton at the Games.

Coach Moses Adu, Ahmed Abdul Samad, Kelvin Evans Alphous (Captain), Cindy Esi Etornam Tornyenyor, Prospera Nantuo, and Aaron Dromo Tamakloe will lead the players to represent the National Badminton Team-Golden Shuttlers and capitalize on the once in a lifetime opportunity to bring home success in our own country.

After the national selection criteria, Linked here the Badminton players that will represent Team Ghana across Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles Events are:

NANTUO, Prospera, Upper East Region–Nantuo has been holding her own on the Doubles and Mixed Doubles. It crowned championships across Africa in recent years and had been Ghana’s National champion at age 21. She hopes to make her mark at her first multi-sport Games, and she will make her Team Ghana debut.

TORNEYNOR, Esi Cindy, Volta Region–Cindy, has built a badminton history of her own, having won the National Doubles event in 2018 and represented Ghana internationally in Mix Team Events.

ALPHOUS, Kelvin Evans, Central Region–Alphous will aim for a run at a Commonwealth medal after his Mix and Men Doubles partnership with Ahmad Samad and Prospera Nantuo caught fire in its first entire season since 2018. Four years after playing together, the pair took home gold medals in international events. He is the raining Men and Mix Doubles National record title.

AHMAD Abdul Samad, Northern Region–As one of the most experienced Golden shuttlers in Ghana, Samad will aim to build on the Men Singles Achievement-The highly African-ranked Men’s Doubles and Men’s Singles Player building on the success of his Men’s Doubles highly world ranked

Samuel Lamptey-Greater Accra Region- Known for remarkable experiences in Men’s Doubles, the former National Doubles Circuit Silver Medalist, will look forward to brewing in confidence after an excellent performance in African tournaments. Together with his pair, an incredible performance will brew in their play.

TAMAKLOE, Dromo Aaron-Greater Accra Region–Having won match events at his maiden African Championships in November 2021 and made his bow in the same season, Tamakloe-now has a chance to shine at the Multi-Sport Games in Mix and Men Singles Events-One of the most successful Ghana shuttlers of the modern era and has reached the top of the three in two doubles events.

Speaking on her excitement about being part of the team, Cindy shared, “It’s such a glorious honour to be part of Team Ghana, and I can’t wait to get out there and do my very best at the Games with support from the nation, friends, and family!”

Regarding coaching, Head Coach, Moses Adu, added, “I feel incredibly proud to lead on the success of our high-performance plan with its coaching opportunity at a multi-sport level, and we will do the nation proud.”

Hoping to continue our seventh Appearance at the Commonwealth Games success, the Ghana Badminton President shared, “The Commonwealth Games is a very notable event for all of us in Ghana Badminton and the Board and all persons of the sport. Our squad is a blend of youth and experience, but all very talented players and highly world-ranked. We are highly optimistic of success in this endeavour as our long-term athlete development plan, with its success, is bringing the needed performance results across the country’s sporting popularity. We are also elated to be guided by Prof Oluwaseun O. Omotoyo, the Head of the Department of Sports and Exercise Medical Sciences (SEMS), University of Health & Allied Sciences, Ho, for his eminence as a renowned World Sports psychologist for our team.”

Ghana Badminton Association would be making their seventh appearance at the Commonwealth Games after their debut in the 1998 Games held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

You can be part of the team by following our social channels, where each athlete will perform in Birmingham. Ghana Badminton will compete from July 30th- August 8th, 2022, at the NEC Hall, Birmingham, after an initial 6-day training camp in the United Kingdom.

Ghana competes in Athletes, Badminton, Boxing, Cycling, Judo, Beach Volleyball, Aquatics, Squash, Triathlon, Table Tennis, Weightlifting, Hockey and 3 Para Sporting Disciplines.

The Commonwealth Games is a multi-sport event with a fully integrated programme of para-sport disciplines. This year’s Games promises to be extra special, with packed stadiums and arenas after Tokyo 2020 took place behind closed doors. Birmingham 2022 is set to have the most significant female and para-sport programme in history after a new discipline of Women’s T20 Cricket, Beach Volleyball and Para Table Tennis was 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 Ghana’s Olympic Sport of Badminton. 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

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.Psalm 116:15 NIV

Be with us in repeating the words of stanzas 1 and 2 of MHB 647:

Lord, it belongs not to my care

Whether I die or live:

To love and serve thee is my share, and this thy grace must give.

Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he went through before;

He that into God’s kingdom comes must enter by this door.

It is an honour to write this tribute to Ebenezer Affaidu —a friend, colleague, player, teacher, coach, educational administrator, husband, father, and son to the national governing body of the sport of Badminton in Ghana. In our opulence role we knew him, from whatever vantage point, he stood apart as someone special!

The national body of the sport of Badminton first encountered him, at the mid-stage of his career in education and sports administration some thirty years ago, at the University of Cape Coast with our foremost Rev Graham of Agona Abodom Methodist Church. His special leadership abilities and charismatic personality were readily apparent! Our first encounter with him marked the beginning of our longstanding professional friendship and badminton collaboration and enabled coaching for his players at Swedru School of Business to nurture an intent of establishing a Badminton Court at Ajumako Mando, in the Central Region of Ghana. He was passionate about enabling schools to become better places for students to learn and for players to technically believe and practice the sport of Badminton at the world level. This passion for nostalgia was even led by one of his badminton players that he coached to reach the enviable stage of the 2022 Commonwealth Games just this summer in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

The unifying force that brought Ebenezer Affaidu to the sport is also critical for his vision of being human as a place where people, cultures and ideas meet and flourish. It is this unifying potential and excellence that he has taught us to harness sports’ ability to be an agent of social change and to shape our societies and world for good. As the national governing body of the sport, we already know, of course, how much individual sports – and athletes – were doing in this area.

Mr Affaidu was a veteran of the sport of Badminton, having led its promotion and development of the sport the last three decades in the central region of Ghana, teaching the sport in schools, craving and budding young lads was his passion-some of whom playing in the national Badminton Team. He also led our Badminton in Schools Shuttle Time Project in the Central Region have taken part in our maiden 2018 Shuttle Time Coaching Education initiatives.

We have lost a huge person to our sport – and all of you here – that you have long recognized sport’s wider responsibility to society and its ability to drive social change, which Affaidu teaches us at all times-even to the extent of dying on the sport. Although much too short, his, was a life well lived! He was a determined, visionary, collaborative, goal-oriented, caring person who loved life and all that it offered and a transformational leader and change agent who had great dreams of what sport could be for his society. He had a gift of innovative thinking, a visionary spirit, and the tenacious patience required to successfully lead meaningful sports reforms.

His many awards and public recognitions even during his university days reveal that this was a distinguished sports career of considerable import! His enthusiasm for that next school project was infectious, and a huge component of his success at Ghana Badminton.

Affaidu’s biggest legacy that will preserve his memory with us is to keep a united front and work in our respective badminton communities to transform the leadership landscape in our sporting institutions towards excellent performance.

Lastly, our confidant, counsellor, and hero is no more with us. Nonetheless, we are in tandem with Martha that “he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24). You danced in the midst of the storm with grace. Well done for a good job for all of us. Today, we admire and celebrate a life well lived, a desire for God worth cherishing, a generous spirit worth emulating, and a love for the family without boundaries.

Ebenezer Affaidu was Badminton. He will always be Badminton. What a man! What a spirit! What a joyous, mighty champion! We jointly say, “Da Yie. Onyankopɔn mfa wo kra nsie yie” you have done your part and – will be missed by many, but never will you be forgotten by those who were fortunate enough to have known him!

Ghana Badminton

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