Katowice in Poland will host the first new-look BWF World Senior Championships – featuring a badminton festival – in 2019.
The city in the Silesian province of southern Poland today won the right to stage the popular age-group tournament which is held biennially by badminton’s world-governing organisation.
Gathered at their year-end meeting in Jamaica, BWF Council members voted in favour of Katowice over the Danish city of Kolding, following bid presentations by both the Polish Badminton Association and Badminton Denmark, outlining plans for the main championships as well as a badminton festival in which members of the local community as well as visitors can play.
-It is encouraging to see more European countries interested in hosting the World Senior Championships. Both Poland and Denmark have organised fantastic events for us this year and both would have been excellent choices to host this event. My personal congratulations goes to the Polish Badminton Association, President Marek Zawadka and the city of Katowice. I am certain that it will be a fantastic badminton festival organised to perfection, said BEC General Secretary Brian Agerbak.
The 2017 European Mixed Team Championships was hosted by the Polish association in February with great success. And prior to that, they successfully hosted the European Junior Championships in 2016, both events in the city of Lubin.
- A centrepiece event
Representing the Polish Badminton Association, Zorika Mikolajczak and Irek Gorniok, detailed their organisation’s intentions to host the main World Seniors tournament at Spodek Sports and Entertainment Arena which boasts 11,000 seats while unveiling plans for a festival which would start next year and run into 2019, ending after the BWF World Senior Championships.
- We will do our best to prepare a wonderful event. The festival will be for everybody, including juniors and amateur seniors. We want the whole city to be involved, said Gorniok, a member of the local organising committee.
BWF recently announced a multi-tiered festival as part of World Seniors aimed at capitalising on the accustomed social atmosphere around this tournament in which hundreds of players aged +35 to +70 compete, often with family and friends joining them to spectate and vacation. The concept is to offer other persons the opportunity to play badminton in a festival setting.
- The World Seniors will still be the centrepiece of the overall event but we see an opportunity to enhance the value of the event and the overall experience, added BWF President Poul-Erik Høyer.