The Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Wednesday unveiled the first five Integrity Ambassadors for its “I am Badminton’’ integrity programme.
An online portal, Insidethegames, said that Japan’s Olympic women’s doubles champions, Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takanashi, who were jointly named Female Players of the Year, were among the ambassadors.
Others are Danish Viktor Axelsen and Christinna Pedersen, as well as Indian star, Saina Newhal, who is a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Athletes’ Commission.
The ambassadors were announced in Dubai, host of the ongoing World Superseries Finals, which feature the best eight male and female singles players in the world.
According to the portal, Gustavo Delgado, BWF deputy president says the campaign seeks to underline the body’s commitment to clean, fair and honourable sport.
“We want to assure that from an early age, our athletes understand how they should conduct themselves.
“More critically why they should avoid any misconduct which could jeopardise their and badminton integrity.
“We want to protect our clean athletes and protect our sport,’’ it said.
It added that the programme was first launched at the 2015 BWF World Junior Championships, with the aim to address various threats such as doping, match fixing, illegal betting and corruption.
It said the ambassadors were selected from across the sport’s international spectrum and would represent the campaign’s values and serve as role models for the badminton world.
According to the portal, Thomas Lund, BWF Secretary-General, the programme will encourage athletes to state “I am clean, I am honest, I am badminton’’ as part of the campaign.
“It is great to have the support of our players which they want to step forward and become the faces and get the message out that this is extremely important for themselves and their colleagues and also for the young generation.
“The main thing is we are using these players in many different types of imaging, we hope they will also go out and promote this idea.
“Saina has recently become part of the IOC Athletes Commission and she has a central part of the community.
“It is great to have them on board and come out as when players speak to players it is stronger,’’ it said. (NAN)