Ukrainian players won in all five disciplines at the VICTOR Latvia U17 International 2023 which took place in Liepāja from 14 to 16 April, thereby surpassing last year's triumph by Ukraine in the Latvian U17 tournament, when Ukrainian players took four out of the five trophies.
Estonian player Emilia Shapovalova also won a gold medal in the Latvian tournament, as she played in a pair with Ukrainian Maria Koriagina, who became the absolute champion in this tournament, winning both women's singles and mixed doubles together with Vladyslav Kunin. Top seed Ivan Tsaregorotsev also won two trophies in Liepāja, winning both men's singles and men's doubles paired with Yegor Romaniuk.
Check all the results here.
80 juniors from 10 countries — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Israel, and Malta — took part in the badminton tournament held in the arena of the Olympic Center in Liepāja.
Unfortunately, no Latvian players got on the podium — but players from Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland secured medals in Liepāja.
The young Latvian players can be proud of their silver medals in the team tournament Herkuless Team Cup which was held for the first time ever in the history of Latvian U17 international tournaments. In the Badminton 100 relay format, the young Latvians defeated both the Lithuanian team and the European combined team which came in third place, but the Latvian team was unable to defeat the strong Polish side.
An international U13 and U15 tournament sponsored by Valdo as well as a U21 tournament sponsored by Lavazza, with 77 participants participated, took place simultaneously with the VICTOR Latvia U17 International 2023 — making the total number of participants in the Liepāja tournament more than 150.
The Liepāja tournament was also attended by the Presidents of the Israeli and Czech badminton federations, as well as the General Secretary of the Lithuanian Badminton Federation.
This is the fifth year in a row that the Latvian tournament is held, including during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when badminton competitions were not held in many parts of the world. Initially, the European U17 ranking tournament was held in Sigulda from 2019 but since 2022, the World Ranking junior tournament was held in Sigulda, while Liepāja took over the right to host the European U17 tournament. Until 2022, the European U17 ranking tournament held in Latvia was sponsored by the badminton equipment manufacturer YONEX but since 2023, the Latvian Badminton Federation has a new sponsor — VICTOR, hence the change of name of the to VICTOR Latvia U17 International this year.
Click here to read the original article in Latvian, by CorpMedia.