Oceania Technical Officials Appointed For Paris 2024

Technical Official appointments have been announced for the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. A total of nine Oceania appointees, including Referees, Umpires and Line Judges will be representing their region and country on the world stage come July/August next year.

Returning to the Olympic stage, semi-professional BWF Referee, Lynne Nixey (NZL), will be attending her fourth Olympic Games.  Previously in 2004 (Athens) and 2008 (Beijing) Lynne was an Umpire, while in 2020 (Tokyo) she was a Deputy Referee.  Lynne is the Referee of the upcoming BWF World Championships in Denmark.

In her first Olympic appointment, Badminton Oceania Secretary General and BWF Referee, Julie Carrel (NZL) will be taking her place as deputy Referee at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.  Amongst her many past Referee appointments including Referee at the French Open and Deputy Referee at Sudirman Cup Finals 2023, this will be Carrel’s highest appointment to date.

Experienced BWF semi-professional Umpire Trish Gubb (NZL) will be attending her third Olympic Games and second Paralympic Games in Paris.  This adds to Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2020 which included badminton for the first time at the Paralympic Games.

First time appointee, Jiten Bhatt (AUS), is excited to have the opportunity to officiate at an Olympic Games.  Bhatt, currently a BWF semi-professional Umpire, said he was ‘over the moon’ when told that he had been selected as an Umpire for Paris 2024.  Having been a technical official for over twenty years, including starting out as a Line Judge, ‘the Olympics is the height that many technical officials aspire to reach, and I am very happy to have been chosen to attend and represent Australia’, Bhatt said.

The trio of Line Judges from Australia who were at Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will all make their second appearance in Paris 2024.  Ravi Nandan and Karen Arnold have been appointed to the Olympic Games while Pauline Eldred has been re-appointed to the Paralympic Games; all three are relishing the opportunity to return to the Olympic arena.

Line judges Lok Yun Loi (AUS) Australia and Renee Cui (NZL) will make their debut when they attend the Paris Paralympic Games 2024.  Lok has just completed officiating at the SATHIO GROUP Australian Open (World Tour 500) while Renee officiated at the Sudirman Cup Finals 2023.

‘The Badminton Oceania Technical Officials Committee (BOTOC) is very proud and pleased to have ten Olympic and Paralympic Games 2024 appointments in Paris, demonstrating the strength of our technical official’s development programmes in the region.  Our goal for 2028 will be to have at least one appointment from a Pacific Member Association’ said Peter Cocker, Chair of BOTOC.