BADMINTON: Blair bags thrilling gold (From Oxford Mail)

BADMINTON: Blair bags thrilling gold

10:30am Friday 1st February 2013 in Sport

DAN Blair struck gold after two titanic clashes in the under 15 Badminton England silver grade tournament at Warwick.

Blair, from Didcot, beat No 1 seed Elliott Robertson (Yorkshire) in a tense boys’ singles semi-final, 10-15, 15-11, 15-11.

He then went on to win the final against James Yang, of Leicestershire, in another exciting three-setter, 13-15, 15-13, 15-12.

Abingdon’s Jamie Cackett was another gold medallist, winning the boys’ singles event in the under 13 bronze tournament at Reading.

Cackett saw off Rory Farwell of Gloucestershire 21-16 in a tough final.

Safia Khimji, also of Abingdon, completed a gold-medal hat-trick for Oxfordshire in the under 13 girls’ doubles.

She teamed up with Bhavika Mistry, from Northamptonshire, 25-16 to defeat Lucy Kemp and Abigail Gorham, of Avon, 25-16 There was also a boys’ doubles bronze medal for James Curtis, of Wolvercote, playing with Morgan Anderson from Sussex.

Woodstock’s Christian Mitchell and Bloxham’s Harry Needell won boy’s doubles bronze at the Home Counties under 11 tournament, also held in Reading.

• OXFORDSHIRE Under 17s routed Avon 19-1 in their Shires League at Oasis Academy, Bristol.

After losing the opening mixed doubles in the third end, Oxfordshire raised their game to win the next 19 matches. Oxfordshire’s team were Edith Langford, Alice Atkins, Imogen Langford, Becki Blair, Sanjana Kini, Joe Roberts, Ashley Garrison, Andrew Brockie, Jordan Beardmore and Ben Isaacs.