Out of the 100 or so players at the Yukon Badminton Championships over the weekend, only two left with gold medals from three events.
Watson Lake’s Jason Carlson in the open division and Whitehorse’s Peter Jensen in the U16 division won golds in singles, doubles and mixed doubles at the tournament held at Porter Creek Secondary School.
Carlson’s win in the open men’s singles was his third straight; he’s won the category every time since it was added to the championships in 2010. He also won the U19 division in 2009 and
racked up a bevy of other titles in previous years.
Carlson took the singles title with a 21-18, 21-19 win over runner-up Abel Chua, who came from Vancouver to play.
“I was pretty impressed because I haven’t been training as much as I should be lately,” said Carlson. “The thing is, the competition gets so much better each year. This year was better than any we’ve had in the past in the adult age group. All the players in the men’s adult age group, all 10 of them, were really competitive.”
Carlson, who has captured three silvers and a bronze over two appearances at the Arctic Winter Games in 2008 and 2010, won his other two Yukon titles with a pair of fellow Watson Lakers. He won the open men’s doubles with Seth Rotondi and open mixed doubles with Abbie Rotondi.
“(Seth) used to be from Watson Lake, and he trained with us there for awhile; he’s been up here working in Whitehorse the last two years,” said Carlson. “So that’s why I like to be paired up with him. We’re familiar with each other.”
After winning three silvers at last year’s championship, Jensen was pretty pumped about snagging three golds.
“I was really happy. That’s what I was gunning for this year,” said Jensen. “My brother had all gold last year in his category, so it was my revenge. It was a lot of fun.”
Unlike last year, the Jensen brothers were in the same category and Peter defeated his brother Trygg 21-13, 21-10 in the final for gold. However, the brothers were on the same side of the net en route to winning the U16 boys doubles with a 21-11, 21-10 win over silver medalists Allen Mark and Clayton Mervyn.
Peter took his third gold winning the U16 mixed doubles with Camille Galloway, defeating Trygg and Line Jensen in the final.
“It was fairly tight. I had to grab a partner at the last second because I didn’t have one to start off with,” said Peter, who won bronze in juvenile male doubles with Mustafa Ali Syed at the Arctic Winter Games last month in Whitehorse.
“I wanted to thank all my coaches from the Arctics and training,” he added. “I had Abbie Rotondi and Ken Frankish coaching me during Arctics and I’d really like to thank them for that, and Mike Muller for coaching me in training before on his own time.”
In addition to Carlson and Peter, four other players, including Trygg Jensen, won three medals in each of their respective divisions.
Shermaine Chua won bronze in open women’s singles, bronze in doubles with partner Montong Javannatum and silver in mixed doubles with brother Abel.
Open men’s John Pan took bronze in singles, silver in doubles with Steven Lai and bronze in mixed doubles with Leanne Gordon, another three-medal winner.
Gordon, a former Yukoner who traveled from Inuvik, N.W.T. for the championships, won the open women singles, placed second in the open women’s doubles with sister Jasmine, and third in the open mixed with Whitehorse’s Pan.
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Leanne, who won two golds last year, defeated her sister 21-12, 24-22 in the singles final.
“The gold against my sister – that’s never happened before,” said Leanne, who received funding from the N.W.T. Badminton Association to help cover the cost of their trip.
“It’s a great experience – I love it. I’ll probably keep going if I have enough money and more funding. It’s my favourite sport.”
RESULTS
U14 girls singles
Gold – Sarah Ott
Silver – Emily Mervyn
Bronze – Destiny Taylor
U14 girls doubles
Gold – Line Jensen/Kataya Ulrich
Silver – Aleshia Kremer/Taneshia Jules
Bronze – Shania Hogan/Destiny Taylor
U14 boys singles
Gold – Tristan Rentmeister
Silver – Angus Newell
Bronze – Dakota Rhodes
U14 boys doubles
Gold – Angus Newell/Ben Janzen
Silver – Cameron O’Shea/Tim Schirmer
Bronze – Cole Dewhurst/Ryan Jules
U16 girls singles
Gold – Quynh Nguyen
Silver – Hanna Wirth
Bronze – Delaney Paul
U16 girls doubles
Gold – Aline Halliday/Quynh Nguyen
Silver – Delaney Paul/Hanna Wirth
U16 boys singles
Gold – Peter Jensen
Silver – Trygg Jensen
Bronze – Allen Mark
U16 boys doubles
Gold – Peter Jensen/Trygg Jensen
Silver – Allen Mark/Clayton Mervyn
Bronze – Kyle Rubio/RJ Siosan
U16 mixed doubles
Gold – Peter Jensen/Camille Galloway
Silver – Trygg Jensen/Line Jensen
Bronze – Josh Ford/Emily Knickle
U19 girls singles
Gold – Montong Javannatum
Silver – Martha Phillips
Open women’s singles
Gold – Leanne Gordon
Silver – Jasmine Gordon
Bronze – Shermaine Chua
Open women’s doubles
Gold – Abbie Rotondi/Katarina Gunnars
Silver – Jasmine Gordon/Leanne Gordon
Bronze – Montong Javannatum/Shermaine Chua
Open men’s singles
Gold – Jason Carlson
Silver – Abel Chua
Bronze – John Pan
Open men’s doubles
Gold – Jason Carlson/Seth Rotondi
Silver – Steven Lai/John Pan
Bronze – James Elias/Michael Muller
Open mixed doubles
Gold – Jason Carlson/Abbie Rotondi
Silver – Abel Chua/Shermaine Chua
Bronze – John Pan/Leanne Gordon
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com
