Chongqing Inaugural International Badminton Invitational

Yesterday I participated in the Chongqing Inaugural International Badminton Invitational.

Inaugural because it was the first tournament.
International because there were Chinese and Australian competitors.
Badminton because we were playing badminton (der).
Invitational because, well, there were only a few of us from our office playing.

Before yesterday I hadn’t played badminton for at least 13 years – since I last took PE in high school. I was a little rusty to start with but was actually quite surprised at how quickly I picked it up again. Perhaps I’m a supreme athlete? Or perhaps badminton is just easy?! Ahem, yeh. A couple of my Chinese colleagues told me that I looked like I was playing tennis. Well, it's pretty similar?

I played a couple of very close matches against two of the Chinese boys and I was quite annoyed not to have beaten them. Mainly for bragging rights. Apparently the old competitive urge never dies? I won my other game to love but apparently the Chinese have never heard of PANTS DOWN.

It was a really fun day and although I didn’t win the tournament I didn’t disgrace myself either. I was actually quite glad not to have won as the championship prize was an electric foot warmer...