 Let's go to the courts, the start to a Friday edition of the Sports Mag Zone and specifically the badminton court. Only one Jamaican, Nigella Saunders has ever represented Jamaican badminton at the Olympic Games. Saunders contested the women's singles competition at the 2004 Athens Olympics. But the badminton fraternity is hoping that the mixed doubles fair of Samuel Ricketts and Talia Richardson can qualify for next summer's Paris Olympics. Both players are gearing up for this weekend's national championship and they join us to discuss their journey that will hopefully culminate in Paris next year. Yeah, let's welcome them. Samuel Ricketts and Talia Richardson, lady and gentlemen. First of all, how are you guys doing? We're doing great, you know. Grateful for life, health and strength. How does Paris 2024 sound? It's a really good ring to it, but you know, it's a lot of hard work that comes with even just qualifying for it, but it's a goal that we're looking forward to and we're working hard to get there. Yeah, it's really tough in the Pan Am region. Only I think about two or three players go and right now we're like top eight in the Pan Am region. So we still have to kind of get some good results and hopefully we can see how we can make a push. Yeah, let's get a little bit deeper into that Paris push. Ranked 93 in the world as a mixed doubles fair, number one in the Caribbean, which in and of itself is an amazing achievement. Yeah, yeah. Between now and the games, what exactly would you need to do to get there? It's just about maximizing on points because we haven't been playing for very long to be very honest and we've made massive strides. So it's just about the last three tournaments before qualification close is just about like doing really well at those tournaments, international challenges. That's where we can get most points. So it's just about going, if not making it to the finals, at least the semi-finals to kind of garner those points to get the ranking up more. What's been the most difficult part of the journey you would say? I would say definitely being apart from each other in terms of training. So when we play, it's been like on file, you know, and we play with great person and we communicate a lot and talk a lot. But I think the struggle has been sometimes when we're both away. I mean, the UK and Talia's in Jamaica. She's had studies and so it's been difficult to kind of like train together and build the kind of like just to find details. Where did you go? When do you go? And all those kind of stuff and it makes a big difference. But we haven't let it hamper us and as Talia said, we were making really good progress with what we have. And yeah, just showing the world that we have really great talent in Jamaica. And now that your eyes are set on the Olympics and that's the plan. It's a big plan, if I'm to say so. Will you and Talia be doing a lot more to ensure that you're in the same place at the same time to get the training that you'd need? Because I mean, you are getting through the tournaments, winning and doing better than some of the people that of course get to train more than you. So now that we're thinking Olympics, are you all planning to just make your schedules work around what you need to get done? I think so. That's definitely the plan. Talia has just recently graduated from university. So congratulations. So we actually have two sort of mini training camps after the national championships in Spain and in Denmark. And so in those we'll get an opportunity to train together to work on certain skills and just kind of like journey away outside of, you know, the region and kind of like fine-tune our skills a little bit. And so hopefully we can do a little bit more like that in the new year. Yeah. And Samuel, you've been making the headlines where badminton is concerned. I read one headline in particular on its start out for me about making the top 100 by 2024, which is next year. What's that coming along for you? It's not for us actually. At the moment I'm 136. Yes. And so we've been making really good progress. We've been playing really well, you know, battling with some of the top guys on the circuit. But we just need to get those breakthrough wins, kind of like accumulate those points, as Talia said. Yeah. Because the thing is that they take a look at only your top 10 highest tournaments and so you have to keep bettering your results. So it's only 10. And if you get to a point where you only win the same amount of points, then you just stay where you are. So you have to be progressing and kind of getting those wins in the higher tournaments. And Talia, when we think about badminton, the support is not as it is for the major sports and that's a fact. You know, they turn out even when you all are playing, you know, to get the country to rally behind you. What will need to be done? Yeah, it's just about support and funding because unlike other sports, you know, badminton doesn't have as much sponsors, you know, it doesn't have as much endorsements. So if we get more support from financial organizations, then that would be good because we're able to pump that in the sport and we're able to produce more athletes like someone like myself. So it's just about getting that exposure to the sport, letting persons know that, you know, badminton is played in Jamaica because sometimes when people ask me what sport you play and I'm like badminton, they're like, you know, what is that? It's just about Ricardo. No, I would never say that. I know exactly what it is. Yeah, so it's just about like getting that exposure so the Jamaican people know and then that's when we can get people to kind of give in to the sport like how they're giving to other major sports. So it's about getting that into the sport and then we can have better results and you know, it can be like in Jamaica, we can have better competition. So when we play here, you know, it's as good as playing in Canada or in the U.S. or in other countries in the Pan Am region. You know, what you guys are embarking on is something special. I am old enough. I don't know if you guys are old enough to remember when the jealous Anders qualified for the 2004 Olympic Games and I just remember what a massive deal that was to have a non-track and field at the non-swimmer representing the country at the Olympic Games. So that in itself was special. You two have already created your own bit of history, getting to the quarter-final, some were in singles at the Commonwealth Games, tally and doubles for you at the Commonwealth Games, winning a mixed doubles bronze at the CSC Games. I'm not even going to ask you about outside the badminton community, but within the badminton community, do you get a sense, a feel of how important you are to badminton and especially to badminton in this region and in this country specifically? Well honestly sometimes maybe no because I always think that you know if I can do it, if I train hard enough then you know someone else can do it as well and once they train hard enough. So it's like sometimes I honestly have to like look at the stuff that I've actually done and things we've done as a pair and I'm just like whoa you know did we really do all that because it's like I'm focused on this goal but then sometimes when you're focused on something you don't see the progress that you've made. You can't just have to stop and take a step back and be like you know you've been making good strides. Someone did I just hear her say that she has underestimated what you guys have achieved over the years. Yeah I think so. I mean no I think it's huge. It's huge what we've done and I think even as you were speaking you know like I think just for us like you said the kind of pioneer path for others to kind of like have some hope and belief and especially for Talia to like set a different culture in terms of pushing forward in the women's category and not just holding back you know she's really set like a path for others to say hey I can like do it I can go forward you know and so I think it's really good I mean playing in the commonwealth you know representing playing in all these big tournaments people seeing the flag of Jamaica like bearing and not just playing but playing well I think that's a huge thing you know and it's been something I've been proud of and hopefully you know we can keep pushing that to new levels. Yeah I want to get an understanding of both your parts because somewhere you're in the UK Talia you remained in Jamaica and we now have that coming together to create this wonderful mixed doubles team um but Talia let's start with you just give us an understanding of your journey to this stage. Yeah so I actually started in first form so which have been 10 years ago. I remember when she came for the club. Yeah so I started in first form I didn't decide you know. I was really small. By the way she is still this high and she is still really small. Yeah but I started and my dad's co-worker introduced me to the game and ever since I fell in love with it I went to training three times a week. I trained at my alma mater. Bishop Gibson High did that for five years went to the Carter College continued playing I played throughout CSIC I played throughout CAPE I passed all my subjects and then I went off to university in Jamaica I got a scholarship to study human resource management and a minor in psychology that was a little rough because you know balancing university and badminton is not very easy and in Jamaica the university didn't really cater for you know me being able to train so I would have trained in the night went to school in a day so it was quite difficult sometimes I thought and I was like well you know this is a lot but it's just about just keep pressing and keep going but being able to go to more tournaments you know us having a lot of conversations and like how we need to play what the tactics is like and just learning about each other really helped our chemistry on the court because I would be training here in Jamaica he'd be training in the UK and we would only meet up at tournaments and then after a game we'd sit and we discussed for hours at first I hated it I hated it so much and I just be like I don't really want to talk about this but you know after time and time again the more we communicated it helped our chemistry on court so it was just about I'm in Jamaica I'm training you know I'm playing singles out here I don't get a lot of mixed practice but then when I do play with someone you know you have to change and adapt yeah so it's just about like learning learning everything that I'm learning in Jamaica and still being able to move over to when I go to tournaments and when I go to other training camps you know garnering as much knowledge so it hasn't been an easy path you know funding has been an issue as well because trust me environmental is not an and achieves for it so it's been a lot of struggles but it's also been very rewarding yeah someone from your standpoint as someone who has had the opportunity to train overseas and you're in the UK I want to get an understanding of your own path but I also want to get an understanding of how you feel about the significance of Talia doing everything that she's done based here in Jamaica yeah yeah um like you said similar to Talia trained in mandible um trained for like I think that's when I was seven so trained for like 10 years in Jamaica mandible and then I decided to go to university in the UK so I went to a sports kind of academic hybrid university called Loughborough University which is uh one of the top sports universities in the UK and is that the university that you and I wisdom goes to I'm not sure I'm not sure but it's the one that Adam Petey went to train that okay yeah but I had like a lot of like big time athletes but the thing is the environment was very much curtailed to be able to study and train so different from what she experienced yeah yeah yeah and so everything was pretty much on campus so I went to training seven to nine um then I went to class cycled to class on campus then cycled back to training two to four and then back to class and that was it and so everything was what a life must be nice no it was really nice so you could really zone in and they also gave athletes the chance to split their their final year into like a third and fourth year so you could train more and like kind of spread the workload and so when I went to that university I learned a different level of professionalism like what does it mean to be a professional athlete and you know come to training on time and just different things that I didn't really rehearse that much often here and so yeah it really grew me into a different type of athlete and what does it mean to prepare for a training session the night before I just used to rock up and say okay I'm on time that's alright you know but you know the coaches there were like no you need to prepare from the night before what do you eat what how much sleep do you get is your backpack all those kind of stuff and so that really like kind of lent itself to me growing um so when like you say you know knowing the struggles that Talia has had to go through yeah I'm extremely proud of her for pushing and not just accepting the status quo because she's definitely been pushing on a different level to those around her and so it's been it hasn't been easy for her to kind of like set the standard and so we always talk about it we always kind of rehearse and build and talk about what we like kind of pushing forward to and she always have the inner drive inside of her and so I think that's one of the great things I love about playing mix with her but I haven't really phoned in other girls remarkable absolutely remarkable and a great way to end by the way both of you are from mandible Manchester um the five-time Olympic gold medalist Elaine Thompson here is from Manchester as well did you guys live close to her no you know maybe if I live close I would be able to run but all right all right that's it hopefully we'll be seeing Talia and Samuel at the Olympic Games in Paris 2024 which of course will have on your home of champions sports max all right we'll take a break we'll be back with more on the sports max zone