Saunders taking it one step at a time

Anthony Minott, Gleaner Writer

One of the worst nightmares of an athlete is to suffer a bad injury which puts he or she out for a long time. Jamaica's number-one ranked women's senior badminton player, Nigella Saunders, has been living that nightmare for over a year now.

She tore her Achilles tendon, in a tournament last July. The injury required surgery, and the recovery has been long and difficult for the 2004 Olympian.

Saunders recently played her first competitive tournament for almost a year at the Constant Spring Golf Club where she competed in a doubles event and won.

"I'm taking it one step at a time, I just came off an injury lay-off, and I hope to be back to my best soon," she said.

"The therapy was very hard and painful at first. However, it was less stressful when the tendon became stronger," Saunders recalls.

Saunders' highest lifetime rank was 29th in the world, in 2004, the same year she became the first and only Jamaican badminton player ever to play in an Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Saunders, who also coaches young budding players at the Under-11 age group, was upbeat as she watched the junior players from the Pan American region go at it head-to-head during the Ocean Spray/WATA XX Junior Pan Am Badminton Cham-pionships inside the National Indoor Sports Centre.

"I wish I was still 16," Saunders said with a grin. "It's a joy watching these kids play," she added during an interview with The Gleaner.

Memories

She continued: "It brings back memories of way back in the 1990s when I won the triple -singles, doubles, and mixed-doubles, at the Caribbean Regional Badminton Confede-ration (CAREBACO) held at the National Arena in Jamaica."

Saunders has won numerous titles as a junior and senior at the local and Caribbean level, and she is now involved in Jamaica's youth programme.

"I have eight Under-11 players competing in the tournament," she said.

Saunders recalled that her interest in badminton began while she was a student at St Hugh's High in 1992.

"I saw some girls playing the game and I fell in love with it from then, and decided to join the team and have not looked back since."