For a special Olympic guest blog, alumnus Himanshu Anil Shah shares his joyous lifelong journey to officiating badminton at Paris 2024.
I first started playing badminton in 1976 at my Secondary School and I soon realised it was a sport I excelled at.
I then went to Barnet College where I played for the college team and was Singles Champion for 3 years. From there I went on to spend 3 great years at PCL (Polytechnic of Central London, now University of Westminster) to do an HND in Computer Studies (1981/83) and a BSc in Computer Science (1983/84).
During this time badminton was my main sport and I played for the polytechnic, made great friends and also did my first line judging at the All-England Badminton Championships at the Wembley Arena in London. This would not have been possible without the great sports clubs and support at PCL. From this, I went on to line judge another 4 events in London.
For a time, I stopped line judging as the event moved to Birmingham, until the 2012 Olympics where I managed to get last minute tickets to watch the badminton at Wembley Arena. This prompted me to line judge again, and so after training, and nearly 100 events since October 2012, I became a line judge at the Paris Olympics for two weeks.
It was an amazing experience watching the best players in the world going 100% trying to get a medal. I was also lucky enough to have time to do a little sightseeing in Paris after 52 years. I was accompanied by 79 other line judges from around the world, with a large contingency from France, and Umpires/Referees from around the world. I will never forget the time spent with my line judge family, but on a sad note due to an age limit, this will be my last year line judging at the highest level.
If you would like to be a Badminton Line Judge, start here.
We love hearing your stories. If you have some fond memories of your time at the University, please do get in touch! You can email us via alumni@westminster.ac.uk
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