They were held this week-end in Bordeaux (south-west of France) and I went there to cover the competition for badzine.info (Raphael Sachetat's site). This was my first experience with "live reporting" and this was great, though I realized how stressful and tiring this is! Anyway here are the results : MS : gold : Nabil Lasmari silver : Erwin Kehlhoffner bronze : Maxime Mora, Jean-Michel Lefort WS : gold : Tatiana Vattier silver : Perrine Lebuhannic bronze : Weny Rahmawati, Emilie Despierres MD : gold : Gallet/Lefort silver : Dubrulle/Popov bronze : Duclos/Vincent, Kehlhoffner/Quéré WD : gold : Vattier/Wright silver : Decelle/Rahmawati bronze : Petit/Dijoux, Eymard/Bréard XD : gold : Stojanov/Wright silver : Dubrulle/Rahmawati bronze : Maunoury/Choinet, Vincent/Lebuhannic no Pi Hongyan, she withdrew a few days before the draw! (same thing for french top MD player Vincent Laigle) the GREAT result was the victory of Gallet and Lefort in MD, Bertrand Gallet is the former french number one in MS and has been away from courts for the last two years because of several knee injuries... He played wonders in this final to win 15-10 in the third set against the world 23rd ranked pair!!! Complete results on the official site : http://www.badminton-france2004.com And our articles on badzine.info : http://www.badzine.info (these sites are in french of course)
foot I think it had to do with her foot. She had complaints earlier but it was nothing serious so I forgot the exact reason. Raph will know.
Well yes, she had a problem with her foot which caused her to withdraw from Japan Open this year, but no detail was given this time for her withdrawal. Raph himself didn't know last week, as Hongyan was in China and wasn't joinable... There were rumours that the other girls in the national team may have asked her to withdraw so they could keep their chance of winning. There were also rumours that it might be the national coaches that asked her to withdraw, or maybe herself who just didn't want to spend three days at the national champs for a too easy victory... I don't know the origin of these rumours, they might just come from jealous persons... Only one thing is sure : she officially withdrew due to injury!
