http://www.arafuragames.nt.gov.au/portal/page?_pageid=293,2036383&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL The above link is the home page for the Arafura Games. It is a small International held every 2 years in Darwin Australia. One of the events is Badminton and last time around the Chinese Taipei players ruled the courts. I know they are looking to get more numbers this time from different countries to spice up the comp. From all accounts it is a great little comp and a good starting platform for young International players looking to step up to the next level. If anyone in here is interested you could let your club know about it and get them to contact the Northern Territory Badminton Association (NTBA) to enter teams. Their are Gold, Silver & Bronze awards and all Badminton events are catered for. Below is the webpage for NTBA. http://www.ntbadminton.org.au/ It would be good to see some of you there representing your country. The dates for the Arafura Games are: 12th-19th May 2007. See you there, if you dare!!
http://www.sportingpulse.com.au/assoc_page.cgi?assoc=2773&pID=6 Above is the direct link to the person to contact regarding the Badminton Event and all the info. Hope this helps.
Hmmm, good questions. About the age, I would direct that one to Russel as he is the Arafura Games organiser. You can find his email at the link in my second post. The best players last time were from Chinese Taipei, me and a friend looked them up and they had IBF, sorry, WBF rankings in the top 100. I'm not 100% sure about all of them but you can check out the entrants to the 2005 Arafura Games by doing a GOOGLE search. Just type in Badminton Arafura Games 2005. All I can say is most of us in here would have a hard time beating them. I'm hoping that they can get more still competition in 2007.
It is not a graded tournament at all, there are no points on offer. The teams that attend vary in quality each year, and it is often used as a training event. The players from Taipei in '05 were excellent, as with Brunei (who were competetive with them to an extent, but there was one fellow who was awesome). Several of the Taipei team from '05, from memory, were Olympians. There was a private individual entry from Indonesia who was also very good. To put it simply, the standard at Arafura is often superior to the standard at the Ede Clendinnen Shield (Australion Closed Championships) with the possible exception of the top 10 players. Arafura Games is a friendly games intended to improve cultural awareness between the nations of the Arafura sea (although we do see other nations participate, with teams in other sports coming from as far away as the USA). The concept is based upon the stabilising effect cricket has had between India and Pakistan, which is a very cool thing to accomplish with a sport. This year I can tell you we have had interest in the state team from Queensland, a juniors development squad from Ballarat VIC, and I beleive Brunei has contacted us. Many of the Asian teams leave it quite late, but during this period accomodation in the Darwin area can be quite hard to get, and expensive (Arafura coincides with the tourist season). If there is any queries, I am basically Russell's second with regards to Arafura so you can ask me here and I will get you an answer
And there are no age categories. It is intended as a seniors tournament, but as mentioned there are younger players attending for the experience. They also attended in '05.
