Asheville Badminton Club

News from ABC

The Asheville Badminton Club is a public club in Region 3 (USA Badminton) with access to courts on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the Montford Center in Asheville, North Carolina. For details about scheduling changes and tournaments, please check the tab up above. This site is new as of  January 28 and a work in progress. Check back often and please feel free to give suggestions for links and information.

USA Badminton Team Without Visas for Iran

“USA Badminton is very disappointed that our team did not receive visas to enter Iran and therefore our women’s team will not be able to participate in the 2009 Fajr International Badminton Tournament in Tehran.  Our athletes were very much looking forward to the event and are very disappointed that they will not be able to compete and meet new friends.  Friendship through sport is a good thing that should be respected and cherished.  The Iranian Badminton Federation was sincere in their invitation to us and we completed our visa applications over two months ago in plenty of time to meet all deadlines.  We were told our visas had been approved and were asked to secure them in Dubai.  It’s unfortunate that we will not be able to compete and sincerely hope we will be extended another invitation in the near future.” From USA Badminton, February 04, 2009

US to Send Badminton Team to Iran

February 2, 2009  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 3:38 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP)

The Obama administration is sending a women’s badminton team to Iran this week as part of a broad bid to engage the Iranian people through educational and cultural exchanges, the State Department said Monday. Amid a wide-ranging review of U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic, the trip is the new administration’s first foray into such exchanges that began while President George W. Bush was in the White House. Past exchanges have involved athletes from other sports, artists, academics and professionals. The 12-member team — eight female players and four coaches and managers representing USA Badminton — will be in Tehran from Tuesday until Feb. 9 to participate in the Iran Fajr International Badminton Tournament, which begins on Friday, the State Department said in a statement. It said the U.S. squad was invited by the Iranian Badminton Federation and that they hoped to extend an invitation to Iran’s national team to come to the United States in July. This week’s trip is being sponsored by the State Department, which since 2006 has promoted people-to-people exchanges with Iran. More than 250 Iranians, including artists, athletes, and medical professionals, have participated in exchange programs in the United States, the department said. Previous sports exchanges, which started in Jan. 2007, have included wrestlers and weightlifters as well as basketball, table tennis and water polo players. Since then, the department has sent 32 American athletes to Iran and brought 75 Iranian athletes and coaches to the United States, it said. The badminton trip is the first to take place under the Obama administration, which is considering new approaches to Iran. Those include direct official dialogue and the appointment of a special envoy to deal with Iran, which has not had diplomatic relations with the U.S. since 1979. With tensions high over Iran’s nuclear program and alleged support for extremists, the outgoing Bush administration in late December expressed grave concern about the detention and interrogation in Iran of a prominent American academic who was participating in an exchange. The incident led the National Academies of Science to suspend educational exchanges with Iranian institutions.