Smashing New Records at Tri-Cities Badminton Tournament

Starting another season with a smash, the Ram’s Varsity Badminton Team traveled to the Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) to participate in the well-anticipated Tri-cities tournament. It is part of WAB’s seasonal sports event of WABx-to-the-Max. In addition to the hosting school and the Rams themselves, Shanghai American School – Pudong (SASPD) returned again to a competing school, in addition to the International School of Beijing, who was invited as a fourth competing school. Once again, skill was packed in the tense competition, with the Guangzhou team waiting for new challenges.

With fresh faces and new talents, the 16-membered team was ready to win the moment they stepped onto the rubber and wooden courts of WAB’s gyms. Despite some of the complaints of the Mixed Doubles courts, which were took place on strange tiles located beside a few tennis courts, it did not seem to affect the Sophomores. Queenie Chen and Michael Zhou, who both fought to the finals without losing a single match nor even a game (one match is won by best out of three games). They strived for gold as they battled against their WAB counterparts in two lengthy games, and taking home the gold in spite of their opponents’ home court advantage with games of 21-17, 21-10. By doing so, they marked the first gold for the Ram’s Mixed Doubles team.

Beside from the mixed pair, another Sophomore, Michelle Zhu, stood out from all of the female competitors. Similar to Queenie and Micheal, she also did not lose a single game, dominating the tournament and sweeping for gold. As she had blown all of APAC teams away with her 4th place performance (out of 24 athletes) as a Freshman, it was no surprise that she had conquered all her opponents this tournament.

While the other Ram’s badminton players competed with sweats and scars to bring back the glory of winners. The boys were honored fourth place, the girls brought back the third place trophy with their exceptional performances. The AISG’s badminton team managed to win gold in 2 out of 5 events, which became the record for the school’s participation at all Tri-cities tournament. (SASPd won gold in girls’ doubles, with WAB taking the other 2 golds in boy’s singles and boy’s doubles)

For a young team comprised mainly of Sophomores, the Ram’s badminton team is looking forward to a bright future in upcoming tournaments. With GISAC (Guangzhou International School Athletic Conference) coming up in a few weeks, and APAC Badminton around the corner around after April Break, intense trainings are likely to take place within the next few weeks. With a new record set by the Rams at Beijing, the team looks forward to doing even better at APAC, where competition will be brought up another level with two-year returning champions, SASPx.