SPOTLIGHT – New journey beckons for Anna Rice Milroy

Having bid goodbye to professional badminton with a loss against good friend Saina Nehwal in the quarter-finals of the recently held Commonwealth Games, Anna Rice is now preparing to go into the ‘real world’ in pursuit of her other off-court passions.

Dev S Sukumar/  DNA. New Delhi. Photos Anna Rice/Rights Reserved.

Rice has spent 12 years representing Canada on the international badminton circuit and chose the 2010 Commonwealth Games as her last international.  Rice, who used to play doubles with Nehwal when the Indian was still coming up, is the most socially committed player on the circuit in regards to her involvement with social and humanitarian causes. In the world of badminton, Rice was instrumental in the successful lobby to establish equal prize money for men and women for all BWF badminton tournaments.

Big heart

Off the court, Rice- who is married to fellow-international shuttler and BWF Players President Bobby Milroy, has been an Athlete Ambassador for the humanitarian organization Right To Play for over 6 years.  Right To Play was started in 2001 by the Norwegian speed-skating star Johann Olav Koss.  In 2009, Anna spent 10 weeks in Uganda working for Right To Play in their regional office, as well as conducting badminton clinics and delivering badminton equipment to kids across the country. (See here for pictures from this trip).

For part of her stay in Uganda, Rice was joined by husband Bobby Milroy and IOC Athletes’ Commission member Pedro Yang and the three traveled to two refugee camps in Western Uganda (Nakiwale, with 45,000 refugees and Kyangwai, with 20,000). There they conducted badminton sessions for hundreds of kids, most of whom had never heard of the sport before.

“My time in Uganda was an amazing experience, but it was also really hard. In the refugee camps kids have nothing, compared to what we are used to. But you put a racket in their hands, and their faces light up. They haven’t even heard of the Olympics or the sport of badminton, they have no idea who you are, and they don’t care, they’re just happy you’re there and willing to give them a chance to just play and be a kid“, says Rice.

Choose again…

Post-retirement, Rice will continue her humanitarian passions in her hometown of Vancouver by working for a non-profit organization that helps people struggling to overcome addiction and depression called Choose Again (www.choose-again.com).

“I’m really looking forward to working for Choose Again, it’s an incredible  organisation that helps people overcome addiction and depression in a holistic and natural way.  I’ve been associated with Choose Again for a few years and when they heard I was retiring, they asked me if I wanted to work with them“, says Rice.

Rice and Nehwal go back some way. They’d room together to save costs, and Rice, being older, treated her with the protective concern of an older sibling. Saina has stopped playing doubles to concentrate on her singles career, and Rice –  who has completed her Masters in Communication for Development, is ready for her life beyond badminton.

“I’m ready to get into the real world,” Rice says with a smile. “I’ve been to over 50 countries as a player, had some great wins and painful losses, I’ve been to the Olympics in Athens and Beijing, and the timing feels right as I didn’t want to impede the younger Canadian players coming up. It (Commonwealth) is a good place to finish. After my last match here a lot of players came up to me to congratulate me. It was definitely emotional, but only because I’m taking so many great memories with me.“