Badminton ace sets sights on Olympics
RISING badminton star Prakash Vijayanath may not have won a medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, but his exploits against some of the best players in the world would have pleased South African selectors.
The 19-year-old, who was the only athlete of Indian descent in the South African team at the event, has given selectors something to think about as they shift their focus to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
He began the singles competition with a twosets-to-nil victory over Barbados’s Andre Padmore in front of 5 000 people at the Emirates Arena.
In the round of 32, he was defeated by Ireland’s high- ly rated Tony Stephenson.
He was also part of the mixed team that beat Jamaica and Norfolk Island.
“I have never really been in an arena like that before,” he said. “The atmosphere was insane and the crowd was very loud. They were cheering for everything.
“I really enjoyed playing there. My first-round match was televised and I was glad I could win that.”
The experience elevated his understanding of the game at an elite level.
The agile right-handed athlete grew up in Johannesburg and became fas- cinated by the game from the age of four, after watching his parents play socially at the Randburg Recreational Club.
Now he is the South African singles champion and won silver at the African championships last year.
He is back in Ireland, where he is training at an academy in Dublin. He is doing a degree in computer science and business at Trinity College and will return to South Africa next month to try to defend his national title.
With the Commonwealth Games behind him, he is now hoping to wear the green and gold at the summer Olympics in Brazil in two years’ time.
“Qualifying for Rio 2016 is very difficult. I need to be number one in Africa or in the top 50 in the world,” he said.
“The African Games next year would be an important tournament for me to win in order to do this.”