Following the successful completion of the Male and Female Badminton PanAm Continental Championships, a Coaching Conference was held on the 19th and 20th February 2018. The conference which was held at the National Racket Center in Tacarigua, was hosted by the Badminton PanAm Confederation and facilitated by Mr. Ram Nayyar and Mr. Martijn Van Doormelan.

Ram S. Nayyar is a chartered professional coach from Vancouver B.C. Canada. He is currently the head coach for the Canadian Badminton Team and served as Head Coach for the Canadian Badminton team at the 2012 Olympics.

Martijn Van Doormelan is a high performance coach, advisor to several national badminton associations, Former Head coach/Technical Director with the Netherlands Badminton Association, Netherlands Badminton Coach at several Olympic games.

The objective of the Coaching Conference was to bring new ideas and and teach advanced coaching methods to coaches in this confederation, and saw coaches from Barbados, Canada, Cuba, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, Peru, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago in attendance.

These Coaches got an opportunity to work with and learn from the two experienced professionals in the international badminton community in both theoretical and practical sessions, and the wealth of useful and relevant information provided on modern coaching methods and techniques could assist both new and seasoned coaches with the production of more physically, technically and mentally sound athletes.

When asked about the effectiveness of conferences like these, Mr Nayyar said that these can be most effective if they are are held on a continuous basis and coaches are continuously exposed to the updated content in order to keep building on their skills base.

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​On January 7th 2018, the T.T.B.A. held its annual Awards Ceremony at the National Cycling Velodrome, Couva, where the top performing athletes for the year 2017 were honoured.

​The awardees were:

Age Group Categories:
U11 Male -                 Nadav Singh
U11 Female -            T’shelle Barnes
U13 Male -                Travis Sinanan
U13 Female -           Amara Joachim
U15 Male -                Reece Marcano
U15 Female -           Cathline Ramroop
U17 Male -                Leon Cassie
U17 Female -           Sandhya Cassie
U19 Male -                Renaldo Sinanan
U19 Female -           Ralista Wong
Senior Male -           Alistair Espinoza
Senior Female -      Jada Renales
Masters -                  Derek Singh and  Andre Lewis

OVERALL CATEGORIES
Most Improved Male -         Vance Juteram
Most Improved Female-     T’shelle Barnes
Most Improved Club-           CBAC
Club of the Year-                  FMT
Coach of the Year-               Melvin Thomas
 Junior Player of the Year Male-            Renaldo Sinanan
 Junior Player of the Year Female-       T’shelle Barnes
 Senior Player of the Year Male-            Alistair Espinoza
 Senior Player of the Year Female-        Jada Renales

We congratulate the winners and applaud their hard work and dedication to working hard in order to be the best.