Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games - ACGA Media Release - Badminton Team announced Media Release Wednesday 1 February 2006 BROTHERS BREHAUT HEAD BADMINTON TEAM An exciting mix of experienced players and an injection of youth will play badminton for Australia at the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games following the announcement of the ten member team today. The team consists of five players who represented Australia in the 2002 Games in Manchester with Kate Wilson-Smith, Travis Denney, brothers Ashley and Stuart Brehaut and Kellie Lucas all bringing Olympic experience, along with their Manchester memories to the court in Melbourne. The Brehaut brothers from Ballarat become the third set of siblings in the 2006 Australian Commonwealth Games team, joining squash sisters Rachael and Natalie Grinham and skeet shooting brothers Clive and George Barton. The experienced group will be joined by an exciting bunch of youngsters who will make their major championship debut in Melbourne. Glenn Warfe, 22, and Ross Smith, 21, will combine in the men's doubles and the youngest member of the team, 19-year-old singles player Erin Carroll and 21 year-old singles specialist Foong-Meng Cheah will gain valuable experience competing in front of their home crowd. Rounding out the team is singles and doubles player Tania Luiz, the 22-year-old psychology student who was born in India, but moved to Melbourne when she was nine. The team is dominated by Victorians, which reflects the importance of the National High Performance Centre, which is based at Altona. Badminton made its debut on the Commonwealth Games programme in Kingston, Jamaica in 1966. It was the first racquet sport to be included in the Games and has remained a programme sport on every edition since. Of the 59 gold medals competed for in badminton in Games history, Australia has won only two - a women's singles victory to Lisa Campbell at Victoria in 1994 and a mixed doubles win by Mike Scandolera and Audrey Tuckey in Edinburgh in 1986. Malaysia has been the dominant country in men's badminton, winning both men's golds as well as the women's doubles in Manchester in 2002. England has generally held sway in women's competition, although Singapore picked up the women's singles gold at the last Games. Badminton will be featured on all eleven competition das of the Games and will be held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. The team event will run from 16 March with the medal matches on Monday, 20 March. Teams will initially be grouped in pools of four or five teams, with the highest placed in each, after the round robin section, moving to the medal rounds. Competition in singles and doubles begins on 21 March, with the gold medal playoffs in each of the five disciplines set for the morning of the final day of competition on Sunday, 26 March. Losing players and pairs are eliminated after one defeat. The draw includes seeding of the top players. Unlike recent Games, at which bronze medals were awarded to both losing semi finalists, playoffs for third will occur in Melbourne in 2006, on the eve of the major medal matches. In announcing the team, Australian Commonwealth Games Association CEO, Perry Crosswhite, said the badminton team will face stiff competition in Melbourne. "Predicting the strength of the opposition is difficult as he combinations of singles, doubles and mixed doubles will depend on how each nation configures their maximum entry of five men and five women. "Some nations may wish to focus on the singles, rather than doubles, however we know that Malaysia, England, New Zealand, India and Singapore will field very strong teams. "Our doubles and mixed doubles combinations, particularly Travis Denney and Kate Wilson-Smith in the mixed and Kate and Kellie Lucas in the women's doubles have high hopes. "But after Lisa Campbell's performance in Victoria in 1994, when she won a surprise gold medal, making specific predictions in the badminton is fraught with danger, Mr Crosswhite said. 2006 Commonwealth Games Badminton Team: Men Women Stuart Brehaut (27, VIC) Erin Carroll (19,VIC) Ashley Brehaut (25, VIC) Foong-Meng Cheah (21,VIC) Travis Denney (29, WA) Kellie Lucas (27, VIC) Ross Smith (21, VIC) Tania Luiz (22, VIC) Glenn Warfe (22, VIC) Kate Wilson-Smith (27, SA) For further enquires regarding the announcement please contact: Perry Crosswhite - (03) 9654 4755 ACGA Chief Executive Office
good luck to Team Australia, hopefully home court advantage would help in collecting one or two medals. btw, Foong-Meng Cheah sounds like an asian name to me, maybe from Malaysia??
yes heard that one too. thats a shame as it makes the team very weak without her. also I was told that one member of the top mens doubles pair was dropped. cooper.maybe he was injured too.
btw...r they ages stated above correct?is tania only 22 and erin carrol only 19?why didnt i see here playing in U19 tournys last year then?
Erin Carroll may have turned 19 last year & thus been too old. Who would you like to have seen in the team Bamta?
not sure!! I dont really know the players that well. But I would have like to see Lenny Permana play again. I have seen her in Australia
! tania was born in india? in another article it says she came to australia from saudi arabia when she was small i am confused where was she born? is her dad an indian/ a muslem? no wonder she doesn't look like an aussie....no offence sorry tania
Badminton compititions of Commonwealth Games should have no any points for world ranking, I think. And players taking part in Games will not be able to play in China Master 2006 which is a 6 star IBF WGP tournment. Before TUC finals and world championships, world ranking is very important for any team and player to be in a kind of advantaged situation.
I saw Warfe and Smith playing at Altona yesterday after my school match. Smith is like the tallest, lankiest guy i've ever seen and his smashes are insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My team mates and i were just standing there mesmorised. He jumps like half way to the roof and he can reach from one side of the court to the other. There's no way we can lose.
then you obviously havent seen the results from the oceania champs last week, I just looked up the results and the Australians got smashed in all areas. you need more than a smash to be good at badminton i think. Think badminton in Australia must be worried getting so beaten.
Dude u obviously havent seen top class badminton...or mayb becoz it was a contrast from wat the school tournament that u were playing in were Aussies get smashed by Kiwis and not many Kiwis even make the main round draw in All England...so u can imagine from there...but i guess kate and travis might get a shot at bronze maybe...only "maybe" coz theres the msians, the england world no.1 the kiwi world champs bronze medallist...and u neva know who else...but if draw favours them they have a chance for bronze
You are right about the Kiwi's smashing the Auzzies but not about the all england. All Kiwi's were directly in the main draw. Also currently when looking at the strenght of both the Thoms Cup and Uber Cup teams from New Zealand they would be ranked 6th in the world when looking at the individual world rankings of all players and pairs in the team. Not bad eh?
