It has been an emotional week for badminton as a whole and for Europeans players and fans alike the Olympic badminton tournament has had its ups and downs. Saturday 4th August has been billed Super Saturday by the world’s media and super it turned out to be for European interest on the badminton courts in Wembley Arena.

It has been an almost frustrating week for Europe in the old famous arena in North West London. But all it takes is a one high to dispel all the lows. Yesterday feat by Fischer and Pedersen got the European badminton train back on track and today Europe’s first badminton medal was secured by the unlikely pair of Sorokina and Vislova.

The now much experience Russian duo, which benefited from the disqualification earlier in the week of fellow group opponents Yu Yang/Wang Xiaoli and Jung Kyung Eun/Kim Ha Na, certainly had luck on their side in the Olympic tournaments.

But the Russians certainly proved today that they were well worth their bronze medal after blowing away the challenge of Bruce & Li who were aiming to win Canada’s first ever Olympic medal. The former European Champions knew that if this was to be there day the needed to give all they had for one more match in what was a mentally taxing weeks.

“This has been such a crazy week. It’s impossible to put into words the ups and the downs. We came out today knowing that this was our chance to win an Olympic medal which was something we could not even dream about before this tournament” commented Sorokina.

The Russians controlled the bronze medal game from start to finish and in the end their 21-9 21-10 win was testament to their vast experience and their will to win. Dreams do come true!

“Winning an Olympic medal is every athletes dream. Now that we had achieved this we can stand up and be very proud. Yes everyone says we had luck but also we made our own luck and there was a lot of effort and sacrifice put into winning this medal.” Said Vislova

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Article by Mark Phelan, Photo by BadmintonPhoto