From Konkan community, Riyadh
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Sent by Manoj Mascarenhas

Riyadh, Dec 22: India’s domestic badminton circuit is teeming with a crop of talented youngsters who aspire to make it big at the international level. They draw inspiration from the feats of the Indian badminton legends like Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand who struck gold medals at the big stage.

Deric Gonsalves

Mangaloreans should be proud of Deric Gonsalves who has made a mark in his badminton career. Son of Henry and Eileen Gonsalves, Deric was born on March 26, 1991, He is currently studying in grade X at the International Indian School, Riyadh. (IISR)

He started playing badminton at an early age at the International Indian School Sports Coaching Centre, Riyadh. He was self-motivated and inspired by watching his senior players and soon started participating in the tournaments conducted by ARAMCO and Badminton Federation of Saudi Arabia.

His first success came when he won the junior titles in the year 2004. He won all the events in which he took part at the first attempt.  Within a matter of 2 years, he was in the Championship league and he was one of the few players who won the championship trophy in three consecutive open tournaments held in Riyadh and in other cities of Saudi Arabia during the year 2006.

Deric in action

At present Deric is playing at the Premier level following his success at the championship levels.  This is truly a remarkable achievement of a young boy within a period of 3 years

While he is doing extremely well in Badminton, he gives importance to his studies as well.  In spite of daily workouts, he makes time for studies and his performance so far has been excellent.

His competitive achievements so far:

• Participated in ARAMCO Open Badminton tournament held in Dhahran in April 2004, in the junior category and was the runner up.
• He won several Individual and Doubles events in tournaments conducted by ARAMCO and Badminton Federation of Saudi Arabia between 2004 to 2006.
• Represented Riyadh team in Bahrain Open Badminton Tournament held in September 2006 and played an important role in his team’s success. Deric was chosen as “The Best Player of the Tournament”.
• Deric finished the year 2006 by winning the Individual Championship and Premier doubles event  in the Riyadh Open Badminton tournament held on December 14 and 15.
• At the school level, he represented IISR (under 14 years) in the CBSE Interschool cluster meet held in Dammam.
• He won the individual and team championship (under 16) at the CBSE Inter School Cluster meet held at Riyadh in 2005.
• In 2005, he represented KSA (CBSE) schools (under 16) at the All India CBSE Interschool tournament held in Nagpur.
• He is the current under 16 individual and doubles champion of CBSE schools in KSA
• Recently, (November 2006) he represented KSA (CBSE) team in the Zonal matches for GCC countries.  His team won the team championship and qualified to represent GCC Zone at the Nationals to be held in Amritsar in January, 2007.

Training:

Although the badminton coaching facilities are limited in KSA, he takes intensive training during the summer vacation, under NIS approved coach in Bangalore and practices regularly in Riyadh.