Two badminton fanatics from the Northwest, Gérald Arseneault and Éric Desroches, will soon be flying to Japan and participating in the Olympic Games for the second time.
Next month, they will be participating in the competitions that will take place in Tokyo from July 24 to August 2. The two New Brunswickers will be the only representatives of the American continent among the select club of 26 people selected to referee the best badminton players on the planet.
Gérald Arseneault, from Kedgwick, and Éric Desroches, from Edmundston, each had the chance to referee a final for the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016.
Both got their ticket to the Tokyo Games again. “This is the ultimate goal for a referee, it is the biggest event in our sport, the most publicized”, enthuses Éric Desroches.
The teacher of physical education at the Cité des Jeunes A.-M.-Sormany rose through the ranks of refereeing until obtaining his world certification in 2013. “It takes at least a dozen years of refereeing. to get it, ”he explains.
“I am very happy to be able to represent my country a second time. It’s a source of pride, we feel feverish, and a little more stressed than for the Rio Games. ”
Gérald Arseneault, the current president of the Association of Francophone Teachers of New Brunswick, also says he is privileged to be able to take part in such a prestigious tournament. “Two French-speaking referees from the Northwest is quite rare,” he exclaims.
At 55, he has reached the age limit for a badminton official. This will be his last international competition, the culmination of a career as a referee that began in 1985.
If the discipline is little talked about in Canada, badminton is very popular in some countries such as Japan, China, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia and Denmark. “It’s crazy. in Asia we sometimes find ourselves in arenas of 25,000 full spectators for certain finals, ”reports Éric Desroches.
They will need all their concentration and sharp senses to follow the discussions and make the best decisions in the heat of the moment. Everything goes very quickly in this sport, the world speed record for a badminton shuttlecock was set at… 493km / h!
“You have to have good eyes, a good level of understanding of the game and an ability to anticipate, underlines Gérald Arseneault. The important thing is to be fair, impartial and consistent. The less you notice the referee, the better! “
If they manage to avoid mistakes and do well, they could be selected again to referee one of the finals.
“You have to be calm, be quick-witted and be calm even if it’s extremely stressful when there are twelve cameras around you to check the covers,” adds Éric Desroches. You also have to do very well in English, have a strong voice to be heard by the players and spectators, but also have a good presence and be sure of your decisions. “
The planetary event, organized after a year and a half without competition and under drastic sanitary conditions, will be very different from the previous edition. They will need to obtain two negative tests before departure from an institution approved by the organizing committee. When they are not refereeing badminton matches, they will be confined to their hotel rooms. “We can only remove our mask to eat, sleep or drink,” laments Gérald Arseneault.
Despite the circumstances, the two snowshoe enthusiasts intend to make the most of their Olympic experience.
