India’s Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu, led a trio of women onto the Badminton World Federaton Athletes’ commission after voting for four places on the representative body took place in Gold Coast, Australia on Wednesday, stated a release.
The 22-year-old Indian topped the ballot with 129 votes while world No. 15, Germany’s Marc Zwiebler was placed second with a tally of 108 – both will serve four-year terms along with Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland, who finished third on the list with 103 votes.
The trio replace Belgium’s Yuhan Tan, Denmark’s Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus and Indonesia’s Greysia Polii, who have served four-year terms in their respective posts.
Lithuania’s Akvile Stapusaityte, who finished with 25 votes was the third woman elected to the Commission. However, she will only serve two years as she will finish the term of Tang Yuanting, who had left her posisiton vacant following her retirement from badminton last year after being elected in 2015.
Voting pattern
The regulations state that the male with highest number of votes; the female with the highest number of votes, and the person with the next highest number of votes (male or female) win the three places. Stapusaityte was made a part of the commission following Yuanting’s resignation, as the female with the next-highest number of votes was required to replace the Chinese.
The voting took place on the sidelines of the Sudirman Cup. Out of the 183 valid votes that was cast, two were deemed invalid. The new Athletes’ Commission members will join Shintaro Ikeda of Japan, Koen Ridder of the Netherlands, and India’s Saina Nehwal on the players’ representative body.