Geraldton Badminton Association breaks title drought at country carnival

The Geraldton Badminton Association has broken its title drought as players enjoyed a successful weekend at Badminton WA’s Country Carnival held in Perth over the weekend.

The carnival saw the trial of a new format with no singles games on offer. There was men’s, women’s and mixed doubles action with duos competing for individual titles but also helping earn points towards winning the overall shield.

Pairs were split into under-30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s categories while the mixed doubles were graded using the combined ages of players.

It was a tough competition and while Geraldton didn’t take home the overall title, finishing a credible fourth, there was still plenty to celebrate as they broke a long title drought with victory in the mixed doubles.

They had come close on day one with Men’s under-50s pair Ugyen Namgyel and Erskine Kelly making the grand final after winning all four of their pool matches but falling short in the final to take second.

Women’s 30-50 doubles Jodie Tonkin and Michelle McDonald took home third place and were unlucky to miss out on the grand final on countback.

But a mixture of new and old on Sunday helped Geraldton break its drought as Ugyen Namgyel and Michelle McDonald won the combined U60s-80s mixed title.

This was Namgyel’s first country week championships representing Geraldton and McDonald’s first return to a country week since before having children almost 18 years ago.

There was a further success as Erskine Kelly and Jodie Tonkin finished runners-up in the combined under-100s mixed final.

Geraldton’s Jasmine Turnor was awarded sportswoman of the weekend as Bunbury came away with the shield.

Association development officer Michelle McDonald was pleased with the results.

“Well done to all our association’s players they were very tough games and it very tough competition but none of our players ever gave up,” she said.

“This was our first title in quite some time. We’ve come away with trophies and titles which is very exciting, and we hope our success can spur on more players to get involved in State tournaments in the future.”