Galway badminton stars aiming for new heights

FOUR badminton players in the Galway Lawn Tennis Club (GLTC) are aiming to play regularly amongst the best in Europe.

Declan Bennett, Callum Thomas, Jack O’Brien and Tony Crowley compete on the Irish badminton scene. O’Brien has twice reached the Irish National Championships singles semi-finals and he won the Irish Grade A title last season where he beat Thomas in the final. The 22-yeas-old is ranked number 6 in singles in Ireland, with Thomas one place below in seventh.

They competed in three European tournaments in Germany, Lithuania and Latvia in the 2018/2019 season. Bennett believes that in order for them to reach the next level, they need to travel and play in more European tournaments.

The Kilkenny native admits that this will be near impossible to do this without some form of sponsorship. They held a fundraiser recently but still covered most of their own costs when competing in Europe, while they also have the expenses that come with competing in Irish tournaments.

“We need help to be able to fund these tournaments. It’s very expensive. We are looking for sponsorship, as for your world ranking, you need to play ten tournaments a year. If you play ten a year and its costing €500 each time, then that’s a lot of money.

“We also have training costs alongside travelling to and paying the entry fees for Irish tournaments. We have put thousands of our own money into our careers and any help would be fantastic.

“There are only five or six full time badminton players in Ireland that are not working, so we know how difficult it is for us. We need funding or some kind of help.

“It’s not like tennis where in Wimbledon you get over €2 million prize money for winning while the equivalent in badminton is the All England Open where you get €50,000 if you come first. That is a huge divide.

“The badminton players put in the same amount of work that tennis players do,” he said.

See full story in this week’s Galway City Tribune.