By Jemima Holmes
There are a few words or phrases that you can think of and link another to it almost instantaneously. At this time of year, those correlations can go like: pepper… pot, garlic… pork, ginger… beer and black… cake. In the world of sport, there are many names that could be linked in that way to a particular discipline. But when you think of badminton, only one name comes to mind: Ramdhani.
In the humblest opinions, the Ramdhanis exemplify what it means to be passionate about a sport and oftentimes, from that passion comes success in every venture.

The father, Gokarn Ramdhani, began playing the sport in 1980 while attending Queen’s College, where he fell in love with the sport.
“I started to play and it somehow attracted me. I then started to compete and after winning the National Junior Champions, I continued to go further and got more seriously involved,” the older Ramdhani said, reflecting on his earliest days in the sport.
While he went on to achieve much greater things, like becoming the President of the Guyana Badminton Association (GBA), Head Coach of the Olds’ College Broncos (Canada), Guyana’s delegate to the World Badminton Federation and Second Vice President of the Central America & Caribbean Badminton Associations, the reminder of Gokarn’s beginning still lingers in the Queen’s College auditorium, where badminton courts are painted on the ground and refreshed ever so often.

How is that important? Well, more often than not, the beginning of a story tells a lot about what the resolution may look like. In this case, the humble beginning at QC has spiralled into producing two of the most decorated badminton players Guyana has ever seen.
At a tender age, probably even before they could recall, Narayan and Priyanna Ramdhani were introduced to the sport, while attending their father’s practice sessions or tournaments.
“Going to practice at Yonex Badminton Club, it was only natural that the kids came with me at the early ages in the pram and as the years go by they eventually got on court to have some fun. They both had a shuttle hanging on their crib mobile,” the elder Ramdhani fondly recollected.
So, what is the family dynamic like, having your father as coach and your mother as part of the sport’s administration?
