Badminton: African Championship and Kenya International-Seychelles lose team event title |22 April 2009

On Monday at the Moi International Sports Complex in Kasarani, Nairobi, they just could not find a way to victory as South Africa came all out to reclaim the title they lost for the first time in 2007, putting an end to their eight-year reign going back to 2000.

Seychelles lost 1-3 in what reports have described as ‘a pulsating final’.
In the men’s singles, Steve Malcouzane lost 0-2 (14-21, 22-24) to Chris Dednam, but Catherina Paulin won 2-0 (21-18 24-22) against Stacey Doubel in the women’s singles to tie the score at 1-1.

In the mixed doubles, Seychelles’ African top seeds Georgie Cupidon and Juliette Ah-Wan fell to the pair of Chris Dednam and Michelle Edwards in a game that lasted almost an hour.

When Cupidon and Malcouzane teamed up for the men’s doubles, they had to win to force a decisive fifth women’s doubles match, but they failed in their bid as they lost 1-2 (21-18, 17-21, 19-21) in an evenly balanced encounter.

In Mauritius in 2007, Seychelles won the team event gold medal for the first time with a 3-2 final win to dethrone South Africa.

Losing semifinalists Mauritius (1-3 to South Africa) and Egypt (0-3 to Seychelles) are the bronze medallists of this year’s mixed team event competition.

The end of the mixed team event has paved the way for the individual events, which started yesterday.

The Seychellois mixed doubles pair of Ah-Wan and Cupidon aim to defend their title and extend their winning run to three.

After getting a 2-1 (21-16, 17-21, 21-16) win over the South African pair of James Doram and Michelle Edwards to be crowned African champions for the first time in Algiers, Algeria, in December 2006, Ah-Wan and Cupidon won another epic final against a South African duo, Edwards and partner Chris Dednam, inside the National Badminton Centre in Rose-Hill, Mauritius, in 2007. The final score was 2-1 (21-15, 11-21, 21-15) in favour of the Seychellois.

Seychelles won two more medals – a silver and a bronze – during the same championships in Mauritius in 2007.

Cupidon and Malcouzane lost the men’s doubles final 0-2 (17-21, 16-21) to the Dednam brothers – Chris and Roelof – of South Africa, and the women’s doubles pair of Ah-Wan and Paulin grabbed the bronze medal after losing 0-2 (17-21, 19-21) to eventual gold medallists Michelle Edwards and Chantal Botts of South Africa.

G. G.