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(Photo: Badminton Europe)
The Race to Tokyo continues
Date: 2/26/2021 10:28 AM
Published by : Alan Raftery
Badminton has wasted no time to get going in 2021 and next week marks the restart of the Race to Tokyo as players hunt for ranking points towards the Summer Olympics. 

Last week, Europe’s top players competed at the 2021 European Mixed Team Championships to crown the best team from the continent. In January, fans enjoyed two Thailand Opens followed by a belated end of the 2020 season finale with the BWF World Tour Finals. Now it is all about looking forward. 

Before Christmas, BWF completed a review process of the tournament calendar for 2021, as well as procedures for reopening the BWF World Rankings and vital information related to qualification and seedings for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Badminton Europe on site
Excitingly, the Olympic Qualifying period for the Race to Tokyo will restart next week with the first tournament counting for qualification being the YONEX Swiss Open 2021. Badminton Europe will be on-site reporting on the action every step of the way. 

To keep up-to-date with the news reports and post-match interviews from the Swiss Open, make sure you follow us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube

Have a look at the draw here.

Historic All England Open
Last year, as the pandemic numbers rose, fans learnt of the cancellation of the German Open and worried about the viability of the greatly anticipated All England week going ahead. The action was played in Birmingham in front of a reduced audience, and on quarterfinals day, BWF announced that all tournaments following All England would cease. 

Eerily, there is a similar feeling around March 2021, however, rest assured, the All England Open will be taking place. As the tournament did take place last year, the 2021 edition will not feature in the Race to Tokyo. However, the oldest tournament in the world will still pull the world’s best who desperately want their name on that trophy. 

For Viktor Axelsen, who last year brought the men’s singles title back to Europe for the first time since 1999, it is a very clear objective. 

-My main focus is on All England coming up before not too long. I am in pretty tough training at the moment. I am happy to be here and hopefully, we can perform this week, Axelsen speaking at the 2021 European Mixed Team Championships in Finland. 

As ever, Badminton Europe will be keeping you up to date with the action. To get excited, here is the All England draw

©badmintoneurope.com. All rights reserved.

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