B.C. duo — Richmond’s Duncan Yao and Vancouver’s Joshua Liu — won a bronze medal in badminton men’s doubles at the Canada Winter Games on Wednesday.
The B.C. athletes beat team Manitoba in three sets.
Yao and Liu have known each other for most of their lives and have trained and competed together before, a big advantage in men’s doubles.
After a disappointing loss in the semi-finals, the team was in great shape for the bronze medal match.
We hit the reset button after our semi-final, said Yao. We played well and stuck to our plan. We were down before the interval of each of the games but caught up and got the wins we needed.
James Ho of Surrey also won bronze in the men’s individual match.
Facing an opponent from Manitoba almost twice his height, Ho had to come up with a strategy.
I wanted to make him bend so I went for half smashes and drops. I tried to avoid driving too much because he is a pretty big smasher. I forced him to the front of the net and then found opportunities to push him to the back – I had a better chance of hitting to his back court, said Ho.
B.C.’s Qingzi Ouyang also competed in the bronze medal match in badminton on Wednesday, finishing fourth.
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