The twin sisters Rafaela and Fernanda Munar stood out at the closing of the South American Youth Championship Lima 2020, as did many of our young people who are looking for a space to shine in the national sport.
Fernanda Munar achieved the gold medal in the U17 Individual Ladies by defeating Erika Volosova 2-0. Then Rafaela with Adriano Viale won the gold medal in Mixed Doubles.
Likewise, Fernanda Munar along with Remo Blondet achieved the silver medal in Mixed Doubles in the Under 19 category. And in Women’s Doubles, Rafaela and Fernanda won the gold medal by beating the pair of compatriots 2-0 with Ari Moromisato and Andrea Flowers.
Fernanda tells us that “I train this sport because when we were 5 years old my mother told us – instead of being at home doing nothing – we were on the computer and she said” girls, come down, choose between all these sports. She put us quite a few , I chose ping pong and my sister (Rafaela) chose badminton.
Fernanda adds that “I finished my training before and when I went to see her in her training sessions, I started to like her more. I started practicing myself, so I ended up liking badminton more than ping pong, so I retired from ping pong and started badminton ”.
Rafaela intervenes “this South American was very special because fewer countries came than normal and then because of the Covid we did not train much throughout the year, we trained for three months and it is really a pride because we are Sub 17 and we champion in Sub 19 and it is an honor”.
“We want to reach the Olympic Games in singles and doubles, but I think we have more opportunities in doubles because we are doing better and we feel very comfortable playing with each other,” adds Rafaela.
Fernanda is not far behind and says “before we got bitter playing when we lost, but now we communicate better, we are calmer, with patience and all that.”
Rafaela tells us that “now we sit down with my dad because he also likes badminton a lot and we watch the video of the game and we start to see the mistakes and how we could improve and we talk”.
Fernanda clarifies that “I am calmer than she (Rafaela). Security, confidence, all this, I control it better than she, the solutions too … ”.
Rafaela is not far behind. “We also complement each other because she (Fernanda) is very passive, calm, I am like more (fast, strong) aha … we complement each other very well on the court because she calms me down and when she is like all slow, I I upload it, I encourage it ”.
Rafaela and Fernanda Munar, when the pandemic flared, traveled to train in Spain and followed the online college classes. In the mother country, they played championships and did not neglect their studies. “We are a good team, we are a family in badminton and we want to reach the Olympic Games.”
