The first day of the BWF World Championships 2009 was under way today and it was definitely an eventful day! The most notable news worthy story was team England withdrew all their players and sent them home without playing a single match. The fear is and was that there had been a Terror threat for the World Championships and the english did not want to take any risk for their athletes or staff and sent them home. There were also rumours that other countries might do the same and withdraw their athletes but from the looks of the draw it does not seem that they followed through.
To see the news conference about the English team withdrawing please click on the link below
BBC NEWS TEAM ENGLAND WITHDRAW
On the badminton side, the big upset of the day was Dicky Palyama (Netherlands) defeating Bao Chunlai of China in two straight sets 21-18 21-14. Dicky has been known for taking down some big names but its always a little more shocking when it happens at a World Championships. So now China will be relying on their two big guns Lin Dan and Chen Jin.
More good matches to come tomorrow for the continuation of the first round of the men’s singles.
To follow the draw and the live scoring please click on the link below
