Not so long ago, Dubai and badminton seemed worlds apart. The emirate was known for hosting big-ticket events in other sports such as tennis and football; badminton never even lurked on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Badminton facilities were limited to multi-sport halls owned by schools, with few coaching opportunities. Things started to change when the emirate\u2019s leaders took the initiative to make Dubai a sports destination.<\/p>\n
The turning point for badminton was 2014 when the Dubai Sports Council joined hands with BWF to host the Dubai World Superseries Finals<\/em><\/strong><\/span> <\/a>under a four-year agreement. The Dubai Badminton Development Project, a brainchild of the above partnership, envisaged a multifaceted programme aiming to develop badminton in the emirate, starting with Shuttle Time Dubai<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/a>.[vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”8241,8243,8244,8245″][vc_column_text]Holistic Approach<\/strong><\/p>\n Realising that the sport could only flourish with the development of an ecosystem involving Emirati and expatriate players, academics, coaches, venues, Technical Officials (TO) and competitions, a team was formed under the UAE Badminton umbrella. Besides establishing a junior and senior national ranking circuit and regular Technical Officials\u2019 development activities, it also organised coach education, school programmes and training of event organisers, while ensuring regular competition opportunities for players.<\/p>\n Thus, an adequate supply of TO workforce was available for the multitude of events spread throughout a busy badminton calendar.<\/p>\n Dubai in 2021 is a regional hub for badminton, the home of nearly 30 badminton academies,\u00a0over 400 junior ranked players, over 100 certified TOs, and several world-class arenas. During the pandemic, the UAE Badminton team kept itself busy by conducting AirBadminton tournaments<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, Special Olympics virtual coaching sessions, Shuttle Time national skill development programmes, a community clubs tournament, Emirati Women\u2019s Championships, and the 6th edition of the Shuttle Time Dubai Club Championships, while strictly adhering to COVID-19 protocols.[\/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”7652,7655,7650,7649,8229,8228,8235,8246,8247,8248,8249,8250,8251,8252,8253,8242,8265,8266,8267,8269″][vc_column_text]Jaffer Ebrahim, BWF Dubai Badminton Development Manager, noted the high-profile nature of events held in recent months that have helped build Dubai\u2019s reputation as a badminton hub.<\/p>\n \u201cMeticulous conduct of the Special Olympics World Games Abu Dhabi 2019<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/a>, IWAS World Games<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/a>, Fazza-Dubai Para Badminton International and other international events in recent years prove the Dubai Badminton Development Project has been not only successful in promoting badminton as a popular sport in the region but also brought about the upliftment of badminton in and around Dubai. Thanks to the team\u2019s efforts, badminton has become a natural choice for schools and universities in the region,\u201d Ebrahim said.<\/p>\n With the opening of 10 world-class indoor stadia in the past few months, there is no stopping badminton\u2019s development in Dubai.[\/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”8232,8234,8238,8239,8240″][vc_column_text]Photo Credit to James Varghese<\/em>[\/vc_column_text]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not so long ago, Dubai and badminton seemed worlds apart. The emirate was known for hosting big-ticket events in other sports such as tennis and football; badminton never even lurked on the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2630,"featured_media":8263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7538","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\/7538","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=7538"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8272,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538\/revisions\/8272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}