EURO MIXED TEAMS 2011 – Seeds shine on Day 1

The European mixed team championships kicked off in Amsterdam this week with Denmark installed as hot favourites to retain the title for the 9^th consecutive time. The last time the Danes surrendered this title was actually on Dutch soil back in 1992. After day 1, there is nothing to suggest that the Danes will not lift the title again after their  5-0 demolition of Israel.

By Mark Phelan   Photos:  Badmintonphoto (live in Amsterdam)

There are not many things given as a certainty in badminton but when it comes to European badminton there is one thing that is written firmly in stone, Denmark are head and shoulders above the rest.

This being a given, there is always a sense of great comradery and team spirit from all nations when the European Team Championships roll around and every competing nation is there to win and moreso, every nation wants to dethrone the Danes.

Given the evidence from day 1, it is pretty safe to say that Denmark should once again take the gold as they demolished Isreal 5-0 but there were also convincing results for the other main protagonists as Russia were equally convincing in their 5-0 win over Wales.

“It was great for us to get a winning start today, we all felt comfortable on court today and now with a winning start we all feel good moving into the tournament. We are good at mixing up youth/unexperienced players with the more experienced ones, that way we always keep the motivation high as not all of us have tried this many times and to be crowned European Champions is always a huge motivation for us,” said HK Vittinghus (pictured) after the Danish win.

England, suffering from the loss of Elizabeth Can through illness, look good in all the double disciplines and their new cap Andrew Ellis (pictured) looked extremely comfortable in an England shirt for the first time as he and partner Chris Adcock continued their amazing form.

The only blip from the English came in that slightly weakened women’s singles as Kate Robertshaw went down to the gutsy Slovenian Spela Silvester (pictured) in 3 games.

The Dutch, who once again appear to be foiled by politics and internal sponsorship wrangling, have had to field a weakened team due to the omission of Dicky Palyama, Eric Pang, Yao Jie and Judith Meulendjiks, and it showed as Iceland managed to take a match off the Dutch in the women’s singles through Ragna Ingolfsdottir. Are the Dutch going to be a threat to the medals?  I think not, which is a shame as they should be!

Elsewhere, Ireland took a 3-0 lead against Austria before losing the final 2 matches as they look forward to a mouth-watering tie against the English later in the week. Germany were 5-0 winners over Latvia and let’s not forget Ukraine as they have a healthily balanced side, which showed in their 5-0 win over Hungry.

All things taken into account, it was very much business as usual on day 1 in Amsterdam.  It is just a pity the home nation have been allowed to field a weakened team on their home soil.  Can somebody please explain to me how this is actually good for the game?

For all results click HERE