National coach of Greenland Rune Svenningsen is excited for the 2018 European Men’s & Women’s Team Championships as Greenland will be represented at the European team event for the first time.
Two teams for both events will travel to Kazan, Russia, for the championship event this February, and they are prepared for a difficult draw.
- As newcomers and lowest ranked teams, we will of course be facing nations that on paper is stronger than us. All the matches will be tough, and we look forward to trying our strength against some of Europe’s absolute strongest nations.
- Our biggest challenge in the matches will be the pace. The shuttles will come over the net more times and in a higher pace than we are used to, Svenningsen told Badminton Europe.
Limited budget
Greenland was represented at the Sudirman Cup in 2001 and 2003 and also had players competing at the individual championships back in 2008 and 2010.
- Since then we have not had it in our budget to go the major events, the national coach explained,
- We are in the process of making an agreement with Elite Sport Greenland to support a youth development and a venture on high-performance. This is why we are able to compete at the men’s and women’s championships for the first time in Kazan.
Goals in 2019
The national coach stated that the teams will to travel to Kazan and grow while performing. It is essential that the players get a taste of how it is when the best players perform and to learn a whole lot from that.
- We have a lot of goals for Kazan, but in general we are going over there to play as well as we can. We can only surprise in terms of results and on paper, but we must believe in ourselves and have the guts to play.
- The next big goal is participation at the qualifying stage for European Mixed Team Championships and participation to Sudirman Cup in 2019. We have some young players which will be interesting to follow in the coming years.
Click on the links above to see all the groups for the 2018 European Men’s & Women’s Team Championships.