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Shelley Rudman
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Grace Cullen 15 November 2012
Badminton: Following recent movements in personnel on the GB Badminton programme, GB Badminton is delighted to announce a number of exciting changes to the line-up of doubles partnerships that reinforces the strength in Mixed Doubles.
With seven Mixed Doubles partnerships all vying for success, GB are maintaining a long-standing and rich tradition in developing pairings capable of winning titles on the European and international circuits.
The new changes to the line-up, effective from January 2013, will see Chris Adcock, Marcus Ellis, Gabby White and Alyssa Lim taking new partners.
World silver medallist Chris Adcock will be reunited with Gabby White. Adcock and White, who are set to wed in the autumn of 2013, will renew an on-court partnership that started at a young age, with success on the junior circuit, and matured into a national title winning duo in February 2012.
The partnership of Adcock and White was shot into limelight when they won a silver medal at the World Junior Badminton Championships in 2007. The partnership also broke into the world’s top 20 at senior level in 2010.
White has already had success this season with Marcus Ellis with the pair winning the Yonex Belgian Open and taking the runners-up spot at the Yonex Dutch Open. Ellis will now partner highly-rated young doubles specialist, Alyssa Lim.
Lim, 21, has won numerous national titles in Mixed and Women’s Doubles at junior level and is the latest junior star to make the step up to the GB programme. This season, Lim has been gaining Mixed Doubles experience at senior level on the European circuit in partnership with Peter Mills.
Peter Mills will put all his focus into his Men’s Doubles partnership with Chris Langridge. Mills and Langridge are currently ranked 34th in the world on the back of victory at the Czech International in October and a first Grand Prix Gold final appearance at the Bitburger Open earlier this month.
Of the new partnerships, Jens Grill, GB Badminton Performance Director, said “We have enjoyed a very strong start to the new international circuit season with regard all of our doubles pairs.
“Some of the results and titles won have shown that there is some real potential within our pairings, especially in respect of Mixed Doubles where we continue to enjoy real strength in depth with some young aspiring partnerships complementing the more experienced players.
“With this good form as a positive backdrop, we have reviewed all options with the coaches and players and, through this fine tuning, we believe the new line up gives us a solid platform on which to establish world class mixed doubles partnerships and continue to build for Rio.”
In other news, BADMINTON England has announced that towns and cities across England will have an opportunity to bid for hosting its international events.
The events include the prestigious, world-class Yonex All England Open Badminton Championships (currently held in Birmingham) from 2015 and the English National Badminton Championships (currently held in Manchester) from 2014. The organisation also wants to hear from towns and cities who may be interested in hosting a potential International Challenger, England Internationals and other major one-off international badminton events.
BADMINTON England is seeking expressions of interest from towns, cities and venues keen to work with them to host and grow these events. The process follows a review of BADMINTON England’s commercial programme and events, and is designed to support the organisation’s ongoing work to grow and develop badminton nationwide.
Adrian Christy, Chief Executive BADMINTON England, said: “This process is about looking across our events portfolio and providing fans in this country and worldwide the best possible experience of badminton. We also want to increase awareness of the exciting international events that take place in England and reach new fans to grow our sport.
“Badminton is a fantastic sport that can be played by men and women, boys and girls of all ages. Our sport has a major global following, particularly in Asia, and the Yonex All England Open Badminton Championships is one of the most prestigious annual badminton events in the world. With more than 200 top international competitors and a global broadcast reach of 340 million it is an event at the pinnacle of world class badminton. We want to build on this position and through this process talk to potential partners who can work with us to build our events, and help take our sport to new levels.”
Bobsleigh: Competing at the first FIBT World Cup of the season in Lake Placid, two of GB’s crews achieved top ten finishes.
The two-woman team of Paula Walker and Gillian Cooke began their season in fantastic form, finishing sixth in a race won by Olympic champion Kaillie Humphries and Chelsea Valois of Canada. GB’s men’s four-man team of John James Jackson, Stuart Benson, Bruce Tasker and Joel Fearon also enjoyed a great start to the season, finishing seventh.
The men’s two-man team of John James Jackson and John Baines finished 23rd.
Boxing: The British Lionhearts team will compete for the first time in the World Series of Boxing this week against against USA Knockouts at The Hangar in Costa Mesa, California.
The fixture will feature Sean McGoldrick, Joe Cordina and Antony Fowler from the GB Boxing squad along with international selections Babacar Kamara and Uaine Fa.
It will begin at 3.30am (GMT) on Friday 16th November 2012 and can be watched live at http://www.youtube.com/user/WorldSeriesBoxing.
The contest will be at five weight categories and the team which wins most bouts will win the fixture.
The Lionhearts' first home match is against Italia Thunder at the Celtic Manor Resort, Newport on Friday 23rd November 2012. For tickets, call 0845 4674428 or visit www.celtic-manor.com/blb.
The team will then take on the German Eagles at Earls Court in London on 14th December 2012. More details on the British Lionhearts including its full match schedule are available at www.britishlionhearts.com.
Established in 2010, the World Series of Boxing is a national team boxing competition made-up of teams from across the world. Competitors box without vests and head guards and the WSB scoring system is based on the ‘ten point must system’. Each bout is decided by the scores of three judges or by a knockout, technical knockout, disqualification or walk over. There are five three-minute rounds in each bout and the team that wins the most number of bouts wins the match.
Cycling: British Cycling has confirmed that Academy riders Elinor Barker and Joe Kelly will replace Joanna Rowsell and Steven Burke in the Glasgow round of the UCI Track Cycling World Cup series.
Performance Director Dave Brailsford said: “It’s a fantastic opportunity for these two youngsters to step in and experience the GB competition environment at an elite level.”
Judo: Four British stars including three London 2012 Olympians have set off for a round the world trip to compete at the Apia World Cup in Samoa and the Qingdao Grand Prix in China over the next fortnight.
Olympians Ashley McKenzie, Colin Oates and Gemma Howell are joined by Tom Davis who is ranked British number one at -81kg and won three successive World Cup bronze medals this summer. The quartet will be joined by British Judo Support Coach and newly-promoted 5th Dan Luke Preston.
The group will land in Apia on Tuesday night after two days of travelling ready to compete in the World Cup this weekend.
They will travel 32,640 miles across three continents before returning on 26 November having spent 56 hours and 25 minutes in the air.
Sailing: The Royal Yachting Association has welcomed the decision by delegates at the International Sailing Federation’s General Assembly to re-introduce RS:X windsurfing for the 2016 Olympic Games in place of kiteboard racing.
ISAF Council voted to replace the men’s and women’s windsurfing disciplines with men’s and women’s kiteboard racing at its mid-year meetings in May of this year, and again reaffirmed this position at its meeting yesterday, but the wider ISAF membership reversed the decision at the General Assembly, voting in favour of RS:X windsurfing for the Rio Games.
RYA Racing Manager and Performance Director John Derbyshire said: “This is what the membership of the RYA asked for – we have a very strong youth pathway and some 10,000 windsurfing members of the RYA, so on their behalf we are delighted with the decision.
“We obviously have great compassion towards the kiteboarding community, with whom we have been working very closely, and I am sure that they will continue to work very closely with both the RYA and ISAF families with a view to gaining inclusion for the discipline in future Olympic Games.
“We can now look forward to preparing for Rio 2016 with the clarity that this decision brings.”
The events for the Rio 2016 Olympic Sailing competition are now confirmed as:
Men's Board - RS:X
Women's Board - RS:X
Men's One Person Dinghy – Laser*
Women's One Person Dinghy - Laser Radial*
Men's 2nd One Person Dinghy - Finn
Men's Skiff - 49er*
Women's Skiff – 49erFX*
Men's Two Person Dinghy - 470
Women's Two Person Dinghy - 470
Mixed Two Person Multihull – Nacra 17
*The Laser, Laser Radial, 49er and 49erFX have also been approved as Core Events and Equipment for the 2020 Olympic Sailing Competition.
Skeleton: All three British women placed in the top ten in the first round of the FIBT Skeleton World Cup in Lake Placid.
Donna Creighton was fourth, behind Canada’s Sarah Reid, world championship silver medallist Melissa Hollingsworth, also of Canada, and Germany’s 2011 world champion Marion Thees. Defending World Cup champion Shelley Rudman was seventh, with world championship bronze medallist Lizzy Yarnold in ninth.
In the men’s competition former world champion Kristan Bromley was sixth, Ed Smith was 13th and David Swift was 25th.
Taekwondo: Bianca Walkden collected a second successive gold medal to protect an unbeaten start to her new international campaign. Walkden followed up victory at the Serbia Open with another title winning performance at the Swiss Open in Lausanne.
Walkden, bidding for a hat-trick of wins at next month's French Open in Paris, beat Slovenian, Nusa Rajher, 5-3 to top the podium once more.
On the way to her latest gold medal, Walkden knocked out Resmie Oogink 10-1 to avenge defeat by her Dutch rival in last season's Dutch Open.
She said: “I’m really happy with my performances over the weekend. It was another stepping stone towards the World Championships next year and that's what really matters to me. I love fighting and I’m just happy that all the training and hard work is paying off.”
Walkden was part of a four strong squad that travelled to Lausanne. Damon Sansum's first competition of the new season included victory over former GB Taekwondo Academy member, Mahama Cho, now representing France.
Sansum eventually lost 10-7 to Slovenia's Ivan Trajkovic. Teenager Jamie Abley (-68kg) and Ruebyn Richards (-80kg) both lost their second fights.
