Badminton Europe is delighted to share the 4th player announcement for the Centre of Excellence (COE), which is opening on 1 September 2017. The time has come to present Lilit Poghosyan from Armenia.
Coming from a badminton family, with her dad as her coach, Poghosyan dreams about representing Armenia for the first time at the Olympics. She feels that Badminton Europe's Centre of Excellence is a wonderful idea for those players who have no opportunities to get stronger in their home countries.
“I was someone who was ready to choose the easy road - giving up the sport and doing something boring. Instead, BEC's initiative helped me to choose the hard road - breaking the stereotypes and doing something crazy to reach those crazy goals. I guess the second path is much more interesting and challenging.”
Joining the COE can help Poghosyan, 21, towards reaching her goals. When she saw the facilities at the Selection Camp this May, she wanted to start right away even though that there are some challenges ahead of moving to Holbaek:
“Moving from one end of Europe to (almost) the other end of Europe to live alone, in a new culture, without my family, practicing with stronger players from different European countries - these are all challenges I want to face and overcome.”, Poghosyan explains,
“I wanted to join the Centre of Excellence because it can get me to what I want to be. All I have seen is Armenian badminton players giving up on the sport very early because they cannot support a family by playing badminton in Armenia. Anyway, I knew I had to cross the line and do something different [if I wanted to make it]. The problem was - I didn't know what. Then I read about the Centre of Excellence and it just clicked in my head that this is exactly the way to reach my goals.”
Lilit Poghosyan recently graduated from Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences, and is looking forward to start her new life in Denmark at the Centre of Excellence.
Read the articles below about the announcements made for the Centre of Excellence so far:
Kestutis Navickas will be COE assistant coach
Zvonimir Đurkinjak joins the Centre of Excellence
Stay tuned for more announcements regarding the Centre of Excellence during summer.
E. Lollike, Badminton Europe