Home favourite Choong secures hat-trick of golds at Para-badminton World Championships

Rachel Choong earned a hat-trick of golds in front of a home crowd ©Badminton England

Rachel Choong ensured the host nation would enjoy a successful end to the Para-badminton World Championships as the English player secured a hat-trick of golds at Stoke Mandeville Stadium.

The 21-year-old begun the final day of competition by triumphing with Rebecca Bedford in the women’s SS6 doubles final but the duo found themselves on opposite ends of the net in the singles final, where Choong retained her title with a straight games win, 21-13, 21-3.

She then secured her third title in another all-English final, as she teamed up with Andrew Martin to beat Bedford and Jack Shephard 21-16, 21-4 in the mixed doubles competition.

“I hadn’t realised I was the first English player to win three in the same championships and that feels amazing,” she said afterwards.

“I’m going to be up on cloud nine for a good while, it means more also as it’s in England.”

The home favourite was not the only athlete to end the Championships with three titles to their name as South Korea’s Lee Sam Seop proved to be the dominant player in the men’s wheelchair competition.

He began his personal gold rush by winning the H1 men’s doubles event with Kim Kyung Hoon as the duo overcame their compatriots Kim Jung Jun and Lee Dong Seop in a thrilling three game match which ended 21-17, 19-21, 26-24.

South Korea dominanted the wheelchair events ©WBF

Lee Sam then added to his tally by overcoming Germany’s Thomas Wandschneider 21-9, 21-12 in the men’s singles final, before taking the mixed doubles title with Kim Yeon Sim after they overcame Thailand’s Jakarin Homhaul and Amnouy Wetwithan 23-21, 21-17.

India were among the leading nations at the Championships with Pramod Bhagat producing one of the surprises of the tournament as he emerged as the victor from a three set battle with the defending men’s SL3 singles champion Pham Duc Trung of Vietnam 16-21, 21-3, 21-16.

Bhagat’s team-mate Tarun Tarun also reached the top of the podium as he successful defended his men’s SL4 title by beating France’s Lucas Mazur 18-21, 21-10, 21-15, but the two singles gold medallists then fell to a 7-21, 21-14, 21-6 defeat to their compatriots Anand Kumar Boregowda and Manoj Sarkar in the SL3 and Sl4 men’s doubles event.