9 Candidates line up for BWF Athletes’ Commission

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) published the list of nominees yesterday ahead of voting for the BWF Athletes’ Commission.

Four positions need to be filled on the Commission.  Three current members – Yuhan Tan, Hans-Kristian Vittinghus and Greysia Polii – are nearing the end of their four-year term and one, Tang Yuanting, resigned ofter retiring from international badminton last year.

Voting will take place by email for the first time.  The email voting period runs from April 26th to May 24th.  The final day of voting will also be an opportunity for players at the Sudirman Cup event in Gold Coast, Australia, to cast their votes in person at the stadium.

To preserve the gender make-up of the body, the top male and top female vote-getters will be selected, and a third will be the candidate of either gender with the most votes.  The member elected to serve out the remainder of Tang’s term – which began in 2015 and runs to 2019 – will be the female candidate with the next highest number of votes.  This means that of the six men running, at least one but no more than two can earn seats on the Commission, while no more than one of the three women can have an unsuccessful bid, although one of the women will serve only a two-year stint.

Four Asian players are among the candidates up for election in 2017 – Nikhar Garg and Pusarla Venkata Sindhu of India, Koo Kien Keat of Malaysia, and Yoo Yeon Seong of Korea.  Edwin Ekiring of Uganda is the only African candidate, while Mexico’s Luis Garrido is the sole candidate from the Pan American region.  Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland, Akvile Stapusaityte of Lithuania, and Marc Zwiebler of Germany are the candidates from Europe.