{"id":12688,"date":"2024-08-13T12:38:23","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T05:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/?p=12688"},"modified":"2024-08-13T12:39:31","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T05:39:31","slug":"shuttle-time-to-olympics-the-story-of-el-salvadors-barefoot-boy-wonder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/whats-new\/shuttle-time-to-olympics-the-story-of-el-salvadors-barefoot-boy-wonder","title":{"rendered":"Shuttle Time to Olympics: The Story of El Salvador\u2019s Barefoot Boy Wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Small in stature but big in ambition, Uriel Francisco Canjura Artiga<\/a>\u00a0has gone from playing badminton barefoot on a mud court at the back of his mother\u2019s house in rural El Salvador, to becoming the first to represent his country in the sport at an Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started playing in our backyard when I was nine years old, using heavy rackets,\u201d Canjura Artiga said after his first match at Porte de la Chapelle Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a dirt court with lines painted with white ash \u2013 I remember my mum got up every morning with my stepfather to draw it. We played without shoes because the court is just dirt and I felt more comfortable, like beach football.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is the first sport in El Salvador. Badminton isn\u2019t so popular in Latin America, but soon I only wanted to practice badminton. I enjoyed playing there and it made me stronger in the end. It gave me better footwork and made me stronger in the legs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canjura Artiga\u2019s stepfather was a US citizen who had become a prominent figure in the El Salvadorian badminton community.<\/p>\n

Noticing something special in his young protege, he began running an organised training session once a week on the mud court at the house in Suchitoto, as part of BWF\u2019s Shuttle Time programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I didn\u2019t have trainings, I\u2019d hit the shuttlecock against the wall inside my house,\u201d Canjura Artiga, who stands 1.63m tall, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum said, \u2018Don\u2019t break the wall\u2019, but I did because I hit it there every afternoon. You cannot win playing like this, but for me it was enough. Sometimes she was angry, but she knows I love badminton.\u201d[vc_single_image image=”12691″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]By the age of 15, the mud court and the bedroom wall were no longer enough.<\/p>\n

Canjura Artiga bid an emotional goodbye to his mother, packed his bags and moved to the capital city of San Salvador to train full time at the National Institute of Sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very dangerous, because there were many guns there,\u201d the now 23-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot go out with your phone or money because it\u2019s so dangerous. Luckily, they don\u2019t know how much a badminton racket is worth. It\u2019s US$150 or more, but they think more like 20 or 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum was sad because I was so young. She\u2019d say: \u2018Take care, stay at home, and if you do go out, go with friends or people you know and don\u2019t go out too late\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a similar warning to the one given to Kevin Cordon after he left home in neighbouring Guatemala to pursue the dream that would carry him all the way to the bronze-medal match at Tokyo 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up watching Kevin \u2013 he\u2019s the big player not only for Central America, but for all America,\u201d Canjura Artiga said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was 15 years old, I never imagined playing against him. But for us, he\u2019s the inspiration.\u00a0A semifinal at the Olympics isn\u2019t easy (but) he did that, so why can I not do the same? It\u2019s a big responsibility, but I\u2019m taking it step-by-step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canjura Artiga lost both his Group M matches \u2013 21-12 21-10 to Czech Jan Louda and 21-13 21-16 to 10th seed Loh Kean Yew.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible experience. I never imagined being in a place like this, in a huge arena with all the best players in the world,\u201d said Canjura Artiga. \u201cIt\u2019s so difficult to get here, now I just want to enjoy it.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”12689″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Small in stature but big in ambition, Uriel Francisco Canjura Artiga\u00a0has gone from playing badminton barefoot on a mud court at the back of his mother\u2019s house in rural El Salvador, to becoming the first to represent his country in the sport at an Olympic Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2630,"featured_media":12690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whats-new","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12688"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12694,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12688\/revisions\/12694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}