Hannah Boden is European Racketlon champion for her age group – and is now looking forward to the World Championships next year.
The 15-year-old Honley High student took the Under 16 European crown in Prague, Czech Republic, and will be among the favourites to add a World gold.
She also brought back a silver from Prague with the Great Britain Under 21 team, who narrowly lost out to Austria in the final.
Racketlon is a combination sport where competitors play a sequence of table tennis, badminton, squash and tennis, and Hannah’s main focus was on the Under 16 individual event.
She beat players from Finland and Switzerland in addition to her teammate, the Welsh tennis prodigy Olivia Chivers, to take the gold medal.
In the Elite Ladies singles, Hannah got a very difficult first-round draw against Swedish player, Lina Lindholm, who had previously been ranked in the World’s top five and is an ex-Swedish National badminton champion.
Hannah competed very well and won the table tennis, before narrowly losing out in the badminton, squash and tennis and losing the match as a result.
Losing the first-round match meant she couldn’t finish higher than 17th in the 32-player draw, but she managed to win two further matches and lose one, to finish 19th in Europe with many more years ahead of her to improve on that placing.
There were over 350 players in the Team Championships and, as the reigning British champion, Hannah was selected for Team GB in both the Under 21 and Elite events.
As Team GB were competing against established racketlon countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Finland and the Czech Republic, plus others, it was a fantastic success for them to finish top of the medals table with two golds and three silvers.
Hannah received one of these medals by winning silver in the Under 21s, while the Elite team finished a creditable fourth, narrowly missing out on a medal to Austria (again!) and World champions Sweden.
Next year is marked by the World Racketlon Doubles Championships, taking place in Denmark in July, followed by the World Singles Championships in Germany in November – where Hannah may well be the favourite for the Under 16 title, in her final year at that age group.
