Dear Editor,
Re: "Richmond coaches upset over elimination of co-ed sports teams"
As badminton coaches of a Lower Mainland high school, we understand that the primary reason for BCSS’s decision to split into gender-based teams of girls and boys is to ensure inclusiveness for all-girls and all-boys schools to participate in competition.
Instead of eliminating the mixed doubles category, one simple way to broaden the inclusiveness is to create a separate champion banner for this discipline, i.e. one banner for girls league, one banner for boys league and one for mixed-doubles league.
All matches can be played on the same day just like the status quo with best of five matches for girls and boys respectively and one match for mixed doubles.
With the above slight modification to the existing league structure, there would be no need to eliminate the mixed doubles discipline, which is a traditional part of badminton including at the Summer Olympic Games.
Instead, young Canadian players at the high school level can be given the opportunity to be trained for this discipline.
Terry Kornutiak and Victor Wei
Lower Mainland
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