Team USA won silver in the Para Badminton mixed doubles event for short athletes in the SH6 category.
PARIS, France – The first two U.S. Para badminton players will leave Paris with two more pieces of Paralympic history around their necks.
Miles Krajewski and Jaycee Simon won silver medals Monday in the mixed SH6 category for short athletes. At the Porte de la Chapelle Arena in northern Paris – Lin Naili (32) and Li Fengmei (31) from China – Lin Naili (32) and Li Fengmei (31) lost their gold medal match.
Gold was the ultimate goal for Krajewski and Simon, but they said they were very happy with the end result. After all, Krajewski and Simon qualified for the Paralympics by placing last in April.
“We knew we were the underdogs, and our goal was just to get out of the group,” Simon said. This was our first goal and then we achieved two to get into the gold medal.
A medal was an additional reward that they were hungry to collect upon their arrival in Paris.
“I think no dream is too big, so why not dream?” Simone said before her first mixed doubles match. “I think it’s going to help grow the sport in America because we’ll have something to support us, and I think it’s going to create more funding and more opportunities.”
Simone herself is the product of someone else’s desire to grow the sport. In the year Before meeting Krajewski’s father, Mike, at a Little People of America sports camp in 2016, she had never heard of badminton. Mike was impressed by her athleticism and recommended that Simon try para badminton.
Attracting the American public’s attention to para badminton is a goal for Mike Krajewski, but he has another key demographic on his mind: future Paralympians. The elder Krajewski said he helped recruit every short member of the US Para Badminton team and some members of the Canadian team.
“We need to build on that progress and … explain to them that there are other ways,” he said. “I think what we need to do is provide opportunities, provide camps.”
Like Simon, many young American athletes with disabilities choose to compete in wheelchair basketball, para athletics and wheelchair tennis, which are more popular than para badminton.
Miles said he’s seeing more badminton academies pop up in the U.S., but said he expects more in the near future, given the increase in para-badminton players at international tournaments.
“We’re hoping it’s at least a five-fold increase,” Krajewski said last Tuesday, reflecting on how a medal could impact U.S. Para Badminton. Start slow (and) keep growing.
Krajewski and Simon plan to have a long walk ahead of them, but first they will take a break from the sport. Simone will begin her sophomore year at Lansing Community College working part-time as an ophthalmologist, while Miles will begin his freshman year at the University of South Dakota.
What about instant plans?
“Honor first,” said Simon.
“Well, now I have to take a drug test,” Krajewski said. “Then honor him.”