The 2012 European Badminton Championships got underway this evening in the picturesque town of Karlskrona in Sweden. The Championships were opened with a fanfare of local talent and the first match of the championship was played with home club hero Magnus Sahlberg the first on court.

Sahlberg was greeted on court to loud applause from the local crowd and he duly delivered the home win that his fans wanted to see on this the first day of the tournament. Jarolim Vicén was the Swede’s opponent and the Slovak, obviously suffering with a bad cold, was unable to put any real pressure on Sahlberg.

The Swede led from start to finish in the opening set and only went behind once in the second in losing the very first point of the set. From there Sahlberg powered home to a two set win and became the first winner of this year’s European Championships.

Appearance of Peter Gade the tournament's main attraction 

The main event in essence kicks into gear tomorrow and with Europe’s top players all on show. Without doubt the main attraction at this year’s championships is the appearance of Peter Gade, the Dane who for so long has shouldered with pride the responsibility of being the best player in Europe around the globe.

This is the great Danes final European Championships and he is looking to maintain his 100% winning record in every European Championships he has taken part in. Gade has suffered a small dip in form lately but is sure to be fired up in this is last Europeans.

Team Denmark will be favourites to lift the majority of gold medals come Saturday evening and it would be a fool who would bet against that happening but there are definite chances of gold medals in mixed for the Poles Zieba and Mateusiak going by recent form and Sorokina and Vislova will be looking to retain the title the won in Manchester two years ago. In the women’s singles it is hard to even contemplate Tine Baun loosing but I am sure fresh in her memory was her defeat at the European team championships to Carolina Marin and Germany’s Juliane Schenk will be keen to turn silver from Manchester into gold.

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Article and Image by Mark Phelan (Live in Karlskrona)