India’s two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu will be contesting the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Athletes’ Commission election, scheduled to be held during the World Championships in Spain on December 17.
Sindhu, the reigning world champion, is currently featuring at the Indonesia Open Super 1000 event in Bali. She is one of the nine candidates nominated for the available six positions.
“The elections for the Athletes’ Commission (2021- 2025) will take place on Friday 17 December 2021 alongside the TotalEnergies BWF World Champion ships 2021, Huelva, Spain,” the game’s governing body said in a release.
“…Sindhu is the only current Athletes’ Commission member standing for re-election. She was first elected in 2017 and is one of six women representatives running this cycle,” it added.
Sindhu will be joined by Indonesia’s women’s doubles player Greysia Polii, who won the gold medal at Tokyo Olympics.
“I would like to assist my fellow players to achieve their dreams and help them out with their requests around competing on the international circuit,” said Polii.
On the other hand, the other nominated players include Scotland’s Adam Hall, Hadia Hosny from Egypt, Iris Wang of USA, Korea’s Kim Soyeong, Robin Tabeling from Netherland, Iran’s Soraya Aghaeihajiagha and Zheng Si Wei from China.
Significantly, the Chair of the Athletes’ Commission is elected by the new Athletes’ Commission and that person becomes a BWF Council Member after the vetting process required under the BWF constitution.
Earlier in May this year, Sindhu was also named athlete ambassador for IOC’s ‘Believe in Sports’ campaign.
Notably, Sindhu is the first Indian to become the Badminton World Champion and only the second individual athlete from the country to win two consecutive medals at the Olympic Games. Sindhu meanwhile, is only the fourth player in Women’s singles badminton to claim two medals at the two consecutive Olympics.
In this year’s Tokyo Olympics, Sindhu had bagged bronze medal while at the 2016 Rio Olympics, she had clinched the silver metal after going down to Carolina Marin in the summit clash.