CHAMPIONS – PAN AM 2024
Kevin Cordon, Beiwen Zhang, Chen Zhi Yi, Presley Smith, Allison Lee and Francesca Corbett are the Champions of the XXVII YONEX Pan Am Individual Championships 2024, continental event held in Guatemala City from April 10 to 13.
Check here full results.
Find here more pictures of the Pan Am 2024
Local star Kevin Cordon, won his 4th Pan American title after defeating Uriel Canjura in the final. Cordon continues with a consistent game that allowed him to place himself in a qualifying position for a new edition of the Olympic Games. With this result, Uriel will also achieve a qualifying position for Paris 2024 at the end of the qualification period, being the first Salvadoran to compete in Olympic badminton.
Ygor Coelho and Brian Yang com.pleted the Men’s Singles podium and also securing an Olympic Spot which will be officially announced at the end of the qualification period
USA players took 4 gold medals, 2 silver and 2 bronzes at the Pan Am 2024.
Allison Lee and Presley Smith managed to won 2 gold medals each. First, together they won gold in Mixed Doubles after defeating Vinson and Jennie, who reached the Continental Representation spot in the Road to Paris ranking, in the Final. Ty Lindeman & Josephine Wu and Fabricio Farias & Jaqueline Lima occupied the 3/4 positions of the event
Smith, along with Chen Zhi Yi took the Men’s Doubles podium top after defeating the Pan Am Games champion Nyl Yakura/ Adam Dong in a 3-games-match. The bronze medals of the event were for Vinson Chiu/Joshua Yuan and Job Castillo/Luis Montoya.
Lee also won the gold in Women’s Doubles along with Francesca Corbett. The World Junior Championships 2023 runners-up, manages to defeated seeded 1 Catherine Choi/Josephine Wu in Semifinals and seeded 2 Annie & Kerry Xu in the Final. Jaqueline Lima and Samia Lima completed the podium with the bronze along with Choi/Wu.
Olympian and Pan Am Games 2023 champion Beiwen Zhang won the Women’s Singles gold medal after defeating Michelle Li in the final. Both have a position in the Road to Paris ranking and shared the podium with Rachel Chan and Lauren Lam who won the bronze medals.
The award ceremony was led by Badminton Pan Am President Mr. Armando Bruni, along with Mr. Jose Del Busto, Badminton Pan Am Deputy president and BWF Council Member, Mr. Javier Orozco, Badminton Pan Am Vice President, Mr. Guillermo Lopez, Presidente of Guatemala Badminton Federacion, and Mr. Willy Kaltschmidt, IOC Member.
During the ceremony, Badminton Pan Am presented a recognition to Guatemala Badminton Federation for the organization of the continental event and all their effort and commitment to develop the competition.
Assesors, Referees and local organizing committee were also awarded in recognition of their dedication to the event.
Week in Quotes
“I am happy. Firstly because mathematicaly I need to reach quarterfinals to secure my Olympic spot, and I am very happy and motivated to give more. My goal is to defend the points I have in the ranking; today I am ranked 44th in the world, and I wanto to maintain that to continue competing in high-level tournaments.” – Ygor Coelho
“Six months ago I was not sure if I was gonna play it, but it is good that I get to be back and competing again. There was so many things to balance: balancing Olympic qualification points so I still had to play but also balancing not getting injured in the process, because when I come back sooner than I’m supposed to, my body is weaker. It is not as fit as if I was healthy so that’s a very high risk of injured myself, so I think that was the hardest part of it all: trying to balance.” – Michelle Li
“When it comes to the final we need to stay focused. Even though we are happy that we qualified, the job isn’t finished untel we win the Pan Am Champs, because me and Jennie have never won this tournament so it’s definitely always been on our bucket list to try to win this” – Vinson Chiu
“What better way to close the qualification than at home. We have to wait for them to make it official first but mathematically we are already qualified” – Kevin Cordon
“Last year I have a good year and in this year I just want to be like not injured and just keep healthy. I am planning to retire, so after Paris I will slowing down a little bit and then think about it…how to promote badminton in North America.” – Beiwen Zhang