23 December 2024
An Olympic and Paralympic 12 months is all the time particular and 2024 was no completely different. Gamers delivered performances to be pleased with all over the world, bringing again medals aplenty.
New names got here onto the scene, whereas we additionally bade farewell to others as they left the behind the legacy of a burgeoning expertise pool.
Among the many excessive factors had been Daniel Bethell and Krysten Coombs’ Paralympic medals at Paris 2024.
Each headed to Paris with a medal from the Tokyo Video games already of their assortment and Coombs upgraded his Tokyo bronze to silver in gorgeous vogue.
Regardless of dropping out within the SH6 males’s singles closing, Coombs delivered up one of many moments of the Video games as he performed dwelling favorite and shut pal Charles Noakes in an exciting showpiece.
Earlier on the identical day, Bethell had repeated his Tokyo feat with silver within the SL3 males’s singles, simply dropping out to India’s Kumar Nitesh within the closing, 14-21 21-18 21-23.
Bethell, Coombs and their ParalympicsGB teammates Rachel Choong and Jack Shephard helped to intensify the notice of Para badminton in its second Video games as a Paralympic sport.
Earlier in the summertime, a primary Olympic win for Ben Lane and Sean Vendy set the tone for England’s badminton gamers in Paris.
The lads’s doubles pair rounded off their event with a 2-0 win over Canadian doubles pair Nyl Yakura and Adam Dong.
Away from the 2 Video games, Bethell secured gold towards Nitesh within the 4 Nations Para Badminton event in Glasgow.
And since the pair can’t appear to get away from enjoying each other, the SL3 world primary and three met once more on the World Championships in Thailand.
A 3rd sport was wanted to separate the 2 within the semi-final match earlier than Bethell received 21-18 20-22 21-14.
His World Championship resulted in second place after he fell to Nitesh’s compatriot Pramod Bhagat within the closing, 14-21 21-15 21-14.
Whereas Choong and Shephard didn’t have the Paralympics that they had hoped for, they excelled earlier within the 12 months.
The pair received back-to-back gold medals on the Spanish Para Badminton Worldwide in Toledo within the SH6 blended doubles.
Choong and Shephard backed that up a month later in Bahrain as the previous topped the rostrum twice within the blended doubles and ladies’s singles.
In March, Lane and Vendy received their first Tremendous 300 event after reaching their first closing on the YONEX Swiss Open.
A dramatic closing noticed the pair win 24-22 28-26 towards high seeds Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Bagas Maulana from Indonesia.
Vendy mirrored on the event: “We really feel prefer it has been coming for some time. Every single day we’re constant in our coaching and we’re all the time giving our greatest.
“So we knew that someday it needed to occur for us. And in Switzerland we put all of it collectively and performed very well.”
Their second BWF title of the 12 months got here in Saarbrucken, once they beat Denmark’s Rasmus Kjaer and Frederik Sogaard in a decider within the Hylo Open closing in November.
Previous to the Olympics, Lane and Vendy claimed a silver on the Calgary Open as they misplaced out to high seeds Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen from Denmark within the closing.
Elsewhere, Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith introduced the curtain down on their careers after six years of enjoying collectively. 
A pair on and off the courtroom, the pair reached a rating excessive of seventh on the planet in 2018, successful medals at European, Commonwealth and European Video games stage.
Ellis additionally claimed an Olympic medal alongside Chris Langridge, successful males’s doubles bronze at Rio 2016.
The pair known as time on their profession, saying the pleased information that they are going to be welcoming a child within the new 12 months.
Images courtesy of BadmintonPhoto.
