Brøndby is usually home turf for the best players of Denmark, but the last couple of days they have had visitors from Team Great Britain, and a Russian contribution joined yesterday as well. Last week, a training camp was set up in the All England-arena in Birmingham, and this week, a few European players have gathered on Danish soil in preparations for Rio.

Men’s single Rajiv Ouseph (GBR) have trained against Denmark’s Jan Jørgensen and Viktor Axelsen, while highest ranked Danish women’s single Line Kjaersfeldt have had 11th Olympic seed Kirsty Gilmour as her ‘opponent’ during practice.

“I am very happy to be in Denmark where badminton is such a big sport. We even saw badminton on the news this morning, we are not used to that. I always train with boys back home, so it is great to be here and be able to train with Line [Kjaersfeldt]”, Gilmour said yesterday in Brøndby.

Photo by E Lollike: Ivanov, Boe, Mogensen, and Danish players in Brøndby. July 27, 2016

Vladimir Ivanov joined the players for practice Wednesday, preparing for the Olympic tournament alongside fellow European Men’s Doubles Olympians; Chris Langridge/Marcus Ellis (GBR) and Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen (DEN).

Ivanov’s partner, Ivan Sozonov, seemed to be out of the Olympic race when he earlier this year ruptured his Achilles tendon. A miraculous recovery has, however, put the defending All England-duo back in the game. Now the Badminton World Federation (BWF) has done its part to overcome their last obstacle and has provided information about all four qualified Russian players to the International Olympic Committee regarding the criteria for participation in Rio 2016.

“We have chosen to keep them in the draw, pending that validation”, says BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund to Badmintonworld.tv, addressing the question of the Russian athletes slated to compete in Men’s Singles (Vladimir Malkov), Women’s Singles (Natalia Perminova) and Men’s Doubles (Vladimir Ivanov/Ivan Sozonov).

“We believe the information that we have provided on these athletes lives up to the criteria for participation in the Badminton Competition at Rio 2016, but it is left for the IOC to validate.”, Lund, furthermore, said during the live feed from Tuesday’s Draw Ceremony on Badmintonworld.tv.

Team GB have been in Brøndby since Monday and have practiced there the last couple of days. Today they are going home and will leave for Rio on August 2nd.