MORE than 100 players competed in the Badminton Fiji Secondary Schools tournament, which took place at the Yat Sen School Hall in Suva over the weekend.
These players were from 11 schools and made up 16 teams, an increase from last year’s total participants from three schools and five teams.
Tournament director Robert Loo welcomed the high number of participants and said the tournament’s reach was expanding.
“It’s a major increase for us with our new committee, so with this tournament, we are spreading them to a lot more,” Loo said.
He said the competition this year was made up of six schools from Suva, two from the Western Division and two from Vanua Levu.
The Suva schools were Mahatma Gandhi Memorial High School, Saint Joseph’s Secondary School, Jeremiah Raibevu College, International Secondary School, Marist Brothers High School, Yat Sen Secondary School and Suva Grammar School.
From other parts of the country, the Northern teams were Labasa College and Lekutu Secondary School and from the West, Swami Vivekananda College.
He mentioned some schools were unable to compete this year due to the upcoming school holidays.
With that in mind, he voiced the plans of shifting next year’s competition to an earlier date.
“We are hoping to shift this tournament, this major tournament to the middle of Term Two next year so that we can have more numbers because of the term three dates, most of our secondary school students have to go on holidays
“We want it to be held in the middle of the year when everyone is active.”
Meanwhile, an upcoming national badminton tournament will be held this week.
