Badminton Europe Confederation would like to wish the Latvian Badminton Federation (Latvijas Badmintona Federacija), a happy 55th birthday. The Federation celebrated its anniversary yesterday. 

The federation turns 55 this year, marking an incredible number of years in service, which began on 20 November 1964, whilst still part of the Soviet Union. In 1992 they joined the Badminton Europe Confederation. 

There are under two thousand active players in Latvia. It is one of the smaller badminton nations, but they still host an annual international tournament which players from all over Europe and beyond participate in. 

New tournament success

At the beginning of November, Latvia held the Baltic Open Youth Teams and Individual Championships in the three age groups, U14, U16 and U18, for the second year in a row. Players from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Belarus and Poland participated in the event. You can read more about this event below.

Read also: Estonia's triumph at Baltic Open Youth Championships

A word from the General Secretary

The President of the Latvian Badminton Federation is Martins Kazemaks and the General Secretary is Kristians Rozenvalds. Below you can read Rozenvalds’ words about the anniversary. 

- We are a small country and cannot be proud enough of the brilliant athletic success on the badminton courts, but we also have areas where we are at the forefront of Europe. 

In 2018, the Future Series YONEX Latvia International we organised was the largest in Europe – three hundred and thirty-five participants from forty countries. Also, in 2019, we again managed to attract players from forty countries.

- We launched an initiative to name one of the badminton courts, not only on behalf of the sponsor, but also on behalf of a social project. We called one of the courts in 2019 on behalf of Notre Dame, urging us to think about values in Europe, Rozenvalds said. 

- We must be proud that we have achieved good results in the short term - the number of players has doubled in four years, the number of badminton courts has doubled, the budget of the Latvian Badminton Federation has increased five times, the interest of media, municipalities, sponsors and viewers in badminton has increased, he stated. 

To know more about the Latvian Badminton Federation, click here. 

Stay tuned for the next edition of the MA Milestone which will feature Badminton Ireland.