WORLD PARA-BADMINTON CHAMPS – Germany titles at home

David Toupé of France teamed up with Germany’s Thomas Wandschneider (pictured) to give the home team one of two titles on finals day at the BWF World Para-Badminton Championships in Dortmund yesterday.

Photos: Sven Heise (live in Dortmund)

It was not the first time that Thomas Wandschneider had struck gold at the Para-Badminton World Championships.  At the last edition, in Guatemala in 2011, the German won the wheelchair 1/2 division men’s doubles title and he was the second seed when the championships came to his home nation.

However, this year, Wandschneider’s 2011 partner, Avni Kertmen of Turkey, was playing with none other than Korean Lee Sam Seop, who had won three titles in the last two editions of the World Championships and who, just an hour before, had sealed a fourth straight men’s singles title.

The two men had already met in the tournament, in fact, when their gruelling men’s singles semi-final went to 59 minutes on Saturday, making it the second longest match of the week.  This time, though, David Toupé of France was on hand to help Wandschneider past the top seeds and to take a first world title for himself in the process.

Korea still dominated the wheelchair events overall, winning 6 of the 9 titles on offer.  Lee Sun Ae (pictured) won three of these, while her partners, Son Ok Cha in women’s doubles and Kim Kyunghoon in mixed, were themselves active in three finals each, winning one and two respectively.

Asian Para Games triple gold medallist Cheah Liek Hou of Malaysia was entered in just two events this time and won them both.  His compatriots Chee Wai Chong / Bakri Omar came up on the losing end of the longest match on finals day.  They missed out on the Standing Lower 4th division men’s doubles title when Chawarat Kittichokwattana / Adisak Saengarayakul (pictured below) of Thailand won that final 25-23, 19-21, 21-16 after 54 minutes.

Germany’s other title came in the Standing mixed doubles, where Peter Schnitzler and Katrin Seibert took the gold.

Click here for complete results