Today, Laura Vana of Estonia will start her 2-week training in Odense, Denmark. Earlier this year, the Estonian Badminton Federation applied for Laura to get a Badminton Europe scholarship. After Badminton Europe reviewed her application and made sure the criteria set to get the scholarship were fulfilled, Laura was approved to go to the Odense Certificated Training Centre from 11 to 28 March.

Badminton Europe will support her, and any applicants who have the adequate profiles, by providing a 500€ fixed scholarship. This grant will help covering most of the Centre costs, if not all, and increase opportunities for young players to train with other national teams for a period of time of at least 2 weeks.

Laura has been applying on an annual basis for the Badminton Europe scholarship. In 2009 and 2010 she went to the Swedish national Certificated Training Centre in Malmö and in 2011 she went to Arnhem were the Dutch centre is.

From Tallinn, Estonia, Laura is a singles player and currently trains at TSV Trittau and at the Tallinn University of Technology sports club. Indeed, Laura is a student and follows the food technology and product development curriculum.

When asked what her badminton ambitions are, qualifying for the Olympics is what comes first to Laura’s mind. Qualifying for the world championships and being one of the top players in the world are also some of her objectives. At only 21, she has time to train in order to achieve those.

Apart from being committed to the sport of badminton, Laura enjoys cooking and food blogging.

Badminton Europe wishes to Laura a successful training in Denmark.

For more information about the Certificated Training Centres (CTC) programme and how to apply for a scholarship, click here.

For more information about the CTC in Malmö, click here; in Arnhem, click here; in Odense, click here.

For more information on how to become a CTC, click here.