PAN AM Team Champs – Canada on top

Canada beat the USA 3-1 to keep its title in the XVII Pan American Team Badminton Championships, which are being held in Lima, Peru this week, two years after their success in Curitiba, Brazil, where they had beaten the USA with the same score.

Raphael Sachetat. Photo: live, rights reserved

In spite of the absence of their best shuttler Michelle Li, the Canadians secured yet another gold medal as expected.  In fact, it was all wrapped up before she and partner Alex Bruce would have had to win the deciding point – had she made the trip to Lima.

Alex Bruce and fellow Olympian Toby Ng had set the right pace with a clear 21-13, 21-14 victory over Philip Chew and Jamie Subandhi of USA, but the Americans came back into the tie thanks to their best men’s singles player, Satawatt Pongnairat, who beat Nyl Yakura 21-12, 21-16.

Canada was back in the lead with Christin Tsai spending just over 20 minutes to get passed Jamie Subandhi 21-8, 21-9, before the men’s doubles from Canada closed it down 21-13, 21-11.

“We came into the team finals feeling confident. We all knew what was expected from us and with everybody supporting each other on the team, we played, cheered, and won another gold for Canada at the Pan-American Championships!“said Derrick Ng after the final win.

Earlier in the day, Brazil had won the bronze medal match against Mexico 3-0 while Peru took 5th spot by beating Guatemala 3-2.

Final Standings
Gold: Canada
Silver: USA
Bronze: Brazil
4th place: Mexico
5th place: Peru
6th place: Guatemala
7th place: Dominican Republic

Click here for complete results

The individual event will be starting right after – Click here to view the draws for the individual event