Lee, Sagoy are first Para-Badminton Players of the Year

Lee Sam Seop and Helle Sofie Sagoy received the inaugural Para-Badminton Players of the Year awards on Monday where singles World Champions Chen Long and Carolina Marin were also honoured.

Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

The competition was stiff for the 2015 BWF Players’ Awards.  A clear majority of the candidates were winners of multiple World Championship titles.  There is perhaps no better example of this than Korea’s Lee Sam Seop (pictured above).  At the World Para-Badminton Championships in September, Lee accomplished his third triple gold medal performance, a feat he achieved in 2009 and 2011 as well.  His 2015 titles gave him a total of twelve in the biennial event, going back to 2007.

Female Para-Badminton Player of the Year honours went to Helle Sofie Sagoy (pictured above, right) of Norway.  She won two titles at the Para-Badminton Worlds this year after winning one of two finals in 2013.

BWF Players of the Year were the two singles winners from the BWF World Championships.  Both Chen Long and Carolina Marin (pictured) were limited to one title this year because of their specialty but both repeated as Champions in 2015 and they dominated their respective categories in the Superseries this year as well.

Not on hand to receive the Eddy Choong Award for Most Promising Player was China’s Zheng Siwei.  Zheng pulled off four doubles doubles this year, at Grand Prix and Grand Prix Gold events as well as at the Asian and World Junior Championships.  Zheng now graduates to the senior tour with four career World Junior titles overall.

It wasn’t only playing that was awarded at the Gala Dinner.  There were also prizes given out for the Best Dressed Male and Female Players, and these went to Chou Tien Chen and Ratchanok Intanon respectively (pictured below).

Chen, Marin, Chou, and Intanon are all gearing up now for the Superseries Finals.  They kick off on Wednesday in the Hamdan Sports Complex in Dubai.

Click here for the Superseries Finals draws