Badminton: No Podium Finish for Team Uganda as International Challenge Climaxes
By: Kayiira Jackson
Team Uganda’s performance in the international events hosted on the land keeps on declining every year in badminton.
The 2025, Uganda International Badminton challenge successfully climaxed on Sunday with no Ugandan figure on the podium.
The event took place from 19th to 23rd February 2025 at Lugogo Indoor Arena in Uganda’s Capital Kampala.
During the event Indian were the prime competitors winning gold medals in Mixed doubles, Men’s Doubles and Men’s Singles.
Ishaan Bhatnagar and Srinidhi Narayanan won mixed doubles over fellow Indians Dhruv Rawat and Maneesha who retired from the game due to injury.
In Men’s doubles Dingku Singh and Amaan Muhammad fought from behind to beat up another Indian pair of Akshan Shetty and Sankar Udayakumar 2-1.
The Indians continued their event dominance when Manraj Singh won Men’s Singles beating Azerbaijan’s Dicky Dwi Pangestu 2-1.
On that, the Indian added on bronze medals in Mixed, women, Men’s doubles, Women and men singles.
Players from United States of America were far behind the Indians with three gold medals won by Lauren Lam and Alison Lee in women’s
doubles while Ishika Jaiswal won women singles.
Lucie Amiguet and Caroline Racloz from Switzerland were silver medalist in Women doubles as Turkish Neslihan Arim finishing runner up in Women singles.
Players from United Arab Emirates also managed to make into the medal bracket earning a bronze in Mixed Doubles and in Men Doubles while Bulgaria appeared there once with Dimitar Yanakiev winning a bronze in men singles.
Uganda’s best performance came to quarter final of women’s double, the flag bearers at this stage were Tracy Naluwooza and Shamika Fadhila.
Failing to get into medal bracket meant Uganda walked off lower than last year when the same pair won a bronze while in 2022 Brian Kasirye and Muzafaru Lubaga won a silver.
This making Ugandans continue to wait for a gold medal which last came in 2017 won by Shamim Bangi.
With the conclusion of the Uganda International Challenge for seniors, the event commencing into a second week with Juniors from 13 countries playing for three days starting on 24th Monday to Wednesday 26th February 2025.