Badminton Europe’s Board of Directors allocated the 2023 European U17 Championships to the Lithuanian Badminton Federation. The event will be the first-ever European championships in the sport of badminton to be held in Lithuania and is expected to take place in the nation's capital Vilnius next summer. The proposed dates for the championships that will be held in the same year as the city of Vilnius celebrates its 700th anniversary will be 4 - 12 August 2023. 

Tadas Ivanauskas, General Secretary of the Lithuanian Badminton Federation is looking forward to hosting the event, welcoming young talents from all over Europe: “Our objective is to show that high-level tournaments can be organized in smaller countries such as Lithuania, and that badminton is welcomed and loved in our community. Also, to show that Vilnius and Lithuania, in general, are destinations that attract people to come back not only for sports events, but to find out more about our culture”. 

The celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2022 and acquired the right to host and organize its first European badminton championships, in the SEB Arena in Vilnius.

“Lithuania has never hosted European championships, so we see it as a great opportunity to promote badminton in our country as well as a big challenge for the community to make it happen in the best way possible. We dare to say that the BEC and BWF tournaments delivered in Lithuania are always organized at a high level. We see this challenge as a possibility to develop our organizational skills and write down the name of Lithuania in bigger letters in the European badminton history”, adds Ivanauskas. 

Badminton Europe’s Deputy General Secretary Jimmy Andersen is confident about next year’s event: “We are very excited to take our European U17 Championships to Lithuania, to its capital city Vilnius in such an important year for the city. It will be a first for Lithuania, but hopefully not last. We are utmost certain that they will deliver a high-level organization, and that everyone coming to Vilnius will have a great experience. We have high hopes for a fruitful cooperation, and we already now look forward to the event in August next year“.

The European U17 Championships is organized every two years. In the 2023 episode players born in 2007 or later can participate. During the competition, both team and individual events will be played.  The event was last held in Slovenia in September 2021.