Mariana Agathangelou set for world glory in London along with Heather Olver: London Olympics 2012
Mariana Agathangelou believes that it is good to participate in an event that is the mother of all badminton events in the world before she plays the qualifying round of London Olympics 2012.
The 22-year-old shuttler is ready to fight in the biggest event of her career along with her women’s doubles partner Heather Olver.
As the mega event draws near, all badminton players are preparing their bodies and rackets to get ready for the battle of world glory at the London Olympics 2012, starting from July 28, 2012. The qualifying rounds for badminton will run over the next 12
months starting from May 2, 2011.
The pair is currently ranked at number 21 in the world badminton doubles rankings and they desperately need to improve. They just need to move five places up to book themselves a spot in the women’s doubles draws and play inside the Wembley Arena. Mariana
firmly insists that the Olympics is their prime goal and everything she and her partner Olver do from now on, will ensure their entrance in the arena.
“Our whole season is geared towards cracking the top 16 and we need to select the tournaments very carefully to gain as many ranking points as possible,” said Agathangelou. “All of the training, every tournament we play in, we’re barely thinking about that,
the Olympics is our main goal and everything that comes before it is just preparation. Our first goal is to actually qualify and first and foremost we need to collect the points required to do that. After that there’ll be three months where we can blitz our
preparation to make sure we’re ready.”
Meanwhile, the first day at the Yonex Sunrise Malaysian Grand Prix Gold ended successfully in the northern Malaysian city, Alor Setar. Seven Malaysian and one Vietnamese qualified for the first round of men’s singles category. Nur Azriyn Mohammad Ayub, winner
of national circuit Division 2 men’s under-21 title, defeated Netherlands’ Koen Ridder 21-16, 21-18 to surge into the first round.
In the women’s singles category, Chinese shuttler Wang Lin bounced back strongly to qualify for the first round after thrashing Lydia Cheah 21-13, 21-15 and Tee Jing Yi 18-21, 21-10, 21-15.
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