Badminton: Julien Paul in uncertainty about his quest for the ticket for the Olympic Games

With the onset of the pandemic last year, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) international calendar as well as the Olympic race was significantly disrupted.

However, this new year bodes well for world badminton as the BWF has just revealed a first part of its calendar for the 2021 season including the reopening of the world rankings and the qualification plans for the Olympic Games (JO) of Tokyo, an event for which our compatriot Julien Paul is still in the running.

The latter is nevertheless in uncertainty concerning his quest to go and win his very first ticket for the Olympics. To make matters worse, he finds himself the only Mauritian badiste still in the race for Olympic qualification since Kate Foo Kune has just been suspended for two years for a doping case.

Financial support and Covid-19

Julien Paul’s last competition dates back to February 2020, when he was crowned African champion for the second time in his career. “The criteria to be taken into account for financial support from the government are now different compared to Covid-19. If, for example, I travel, who will pay the medical costs if I ever contract the virus or even, who will pay for the quarantine? “ he asks himself.

Questions that remain unanswered for the Mauritian badiste who should very soon submit a request to the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Leisure.

If initially the Race to Tokyo were to resume from January, the BWF has announced that the qualification period will resume from March with the Swiss Open which will take place from March 2 to 7 in Basel, Switzerland. The last competition to count for the Race to Tokyo will be the India Open scheduled for May 11-16 in New Delhi. The world rankings, meanwhile, will be reopened at the end of January after three competitions in Bangkok, Thailand including the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals 2020 which will close the 2020 calendar.

Aware of the task ahead, the Mauritian number one is already planning to set up a training camp and do some competitions outside to prepare as well as possible for these three months where each point will count for an Olympic place. . “The ideal would be to have this training camp and to refine my preparation in Europe since the majority of the competitions will be on European soil. The Europe Center of Excellence located in Denmark is closer to what I am looking for because it is easier to move between the European countries there ”, explains Julien Paul.

First African

The reigning African champion had also left for a two-month internship in this center last February but was only able to do two weeks because of the first cases of infection in Denmark.

Note that before the world rankings were frozen, Julien Paul was the first African in the world ranking of men’s singles, occupying the 78th place with 21,089 points. Nigerian Juwon Opeyori Anuoluwapo occupies 109th place with 16,587 points followed by Egyptian Adham Hatem Elgamal, 127th with 14,156 points.