Improving Henry eyes London Olympics
JAMAICA’s badminton ace Gareth Henry hopes to muscle his way into the 2012 London Olympics after climbing into the badminton world rankings from a low of 321 to a high of 212 this year.
“I have developed a win-at-any-cost mentality from the time I lost to Dennis Coke a while back, so the fooling around on court days are gone,” added the 19-year-old, who noted that his “mental strength and maturity” and “support and guidance” of his family along with coach Dr Kingsley Ford, helped him to “move up in the world rankings”.
Henry played in six international tournaments this year, three of which are used in ranking calculations.
Though he played in the Commonwealth Games and the Central American and Caribbean Games this year, only the Pan American Badminton Championships, the Peru International, and the Thomas and Uber Cup (TUC) Regional Championships were used in the ranking calculations.
Henry added 920 points from the Peru International, 1315.9333 points from the TUC Regional Championships, and grabbed 2750 points at the XVI Pan American Badminton Championships to boast a career 5905.93 points to be now ranked at number 213 in the world.
He is describing 2011 as his “breakout year” to hopefully rank in the top 100 by then.
“Next year I like to think of it as my breakout year. We have the Pan Am Games in October and I’m going for the gold medal there. I will be entering many more tournaments as I hope to try and make a push for the Olympics in 2012,” he said.
“Right now I have one thing on my mind, and it’s to be the best I can be every time I step on the court and if things don’t go the way I planned it, I can say that I did my best and I lost because my opponent played well,” Henry pointed out.
Majoring in land economy and valuation surveying at the University of Technology, Henry witnessed Commonwealth Games champion and world number one Chong Wei Lee of Malaysia in action. He characterised the kind of player the Malaysian was and why Lee has been world number one for at least two years now.
“He’s a very gifted player, trains hard, and he’s a fighter. He won’t stop running til the match is finished, no matter what’s the score. Can I be as good as him? Honestly, I think I can beat with four good years of training… but in his country,” he said.
In this regard, Henry is encouraging more international competitions.
“The first time I went to Pan Am Juniors and saw the level they played at, I knew I had to step my game up and train harder. In two years time I was on the podium collecting my gold medal for singles,” Henry explained.