Ruth Kilkenny
International Badminton Player, Ruth Kilkenny outlines her experiences since moving to Denmark to train full-time. Here is her story so far...
‘I arrived in Denmark on the 1st of July this year. For the first month I was here on a trial basis, but after two weeks the coach said I was good enough so that was a relief to hear! At the start I found the training so tough and for the first two weeks my body was aching all over! But I had expected it to be like that and it wasn’t long before I was used to it.
So three months on, I have settled in really well. Everyone is so nice and I get on really well with the three guys I live with who are also in the academy. The coaches here are really good and the club I play in, Greve, is a very good standard so I get good matches.
The level of commitment is very high, I am playing badminton now full-time as are most of the other players, although some have part-time coaching jobs or are still in school.
I finished university in June 06, graduating with an honours degree in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science from Dublin City University. This took up a lot of my time especially in my final year so I was never able to train as much as I would have liked.
It was always my dream to come to Denmark to train full-time and to get the best coaching. I am really glad with my decision to come here and I am really enjoying it so far. It is very hard work and not as easy as many people think. If you are not hard working, patient and ambitious you have no place here! However, it is amazing to only have to think about training and getting in the best shape, instead of having to worry about exams or studying. Saying that, I am still glad I have a degree as I will always have something to fall back on.
Regarding my training schedule, I train every morning for 2-4hrs Monday to Friday. In the evening I either go to the gym (Mon, Wed) or go to club training (Tue, Thurs).At weekends if I don’t have a tournament or a club match I go for a long run. At the moment in training I am focusing on changing my technique and learning new shots. This takes a lot of patience as it takes time to bring these into my game especially in tournaments. Also it is important to stay optimistic as it is easy to feel downhearted if you don’t think you are improving. It is actually very common to get worse before you get better! But eventually it will all come together.
My goal is to play in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and playing in Denmark gives me the best chance of doing that. Overall, this is such a great experience. I get to travel the world to go to competitions so I get to meet so many people from different cultures and backgrounds and in this way I have made a lot of new friends through badminton.
I think "Women in Sport" is a great initiative as a lot of the time it feels like men get all the opportunities!
Badminton is definitely a great sport for women as it has equal opportunities. I'd like to thank Badminton Ireland for the financial help I am receiving for travel costs. It is greatly appreciated.’
For more information on Badminton in Ireland visit www.badmintonireland.com