Wayne Macdonnell (born June 28, 1940 in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

) is a former Canadian

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

player. He was a dominant figure in Canadian badminton in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly in the men's singles events. He remained a top ranked badminton player for eighteen years.

Career

Macdonnell won five British Columbia Provincial Championships in the singles category, in 1961, 1962, 1964, 1966, and 1967. He also won three men's doubles championships, in 1962, 1966, and 1975. Wayne Macdonnell won the Canada National Championship for the first time in 1962, at the age of 21; he won this title again in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1967, setting an undefeated record of six consecutive titles in the singles competition. He also won the men´s doubles event in 1963, playing together with Bert Fergus. From 1962 to 1967, Macdonnell competed in an average of ten to twelve tournaments per year (about 65 tournaments) without losing a match against any other Canadian player. Between 1958 and 1975, Wayne Macdonnell won the singles category of the Washington State Championships fourteen times; in 1966, he won the

US Open U.S. Open or US Open are open championship sporting tournaments that are hosted in the United States and in which anyone, especially amateur and professional, or American and non-American, may compete. The term may also be applied to non-sporting ev ...

in the mixed doubles, teaming up with Tyna Barinaga; he won the Irish Open singles title in 1970. Wayne Macdonnell also played a fundamental role as a singles player in the Canadian teams that competed for the

Thomas Cup The Thomas Cup, sometimes referred as World Men's Team Championships, is an international badminton competition among teams representing member nations of the Badminton World Federation (BWF), the sport's global governing body. The championships h ...

. In total, Macdonnell played for Canada in six

tournaments between 1961 and 1976 which constitutes a record that no other Canadian player has been able to achieve. After his retirement as a badminton player, Wayne Macdonnell continued involved in badminton, managing the British Columbia team that won the silver medal in the

Canada Winter Games Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

in 1975 and the

team that competed for Canada in 1986. Macdonnell later became president of Badminton Canada and a corporate member of Sears Canada in Ontario. In 1993, Wayne Macdonnell was inducted to the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame; he is also a member of the Hall of Fame of badminton in Canada.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonnell, Wayne 1940 births Living people Badminton players at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games Badminton players at the 1974 British Commonwealth Games Commonwealth Games badminton players for Canada Canadian male badminton players Badminton players from Vancouver 20th-century Canadian sportsmen