Badminton: Northland Games rep Wu not actually our hot-shot

Joe Wu has been named in the Commonwealth Games badminton team as an affiliated member of the Northland association. Photo / Luke lee

Northland can claim it has a badminton player at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, but he's not really from here.

Joe Wu is New Zealand's leading men's singles player, ranked 96th in the world, and is affiliated to the Northland Badminton Association. But that is pretty much as far as his connection to Northland goes.

Wu said his connection to Northland came about after his coach was involved with the New Zealand Badminton Academy, closely aligned with Northland. Since then he has been in the region to help with some junior training as part of the academy.

"I'm from all over the place, went to school in Canterbury, then Waikato, and now I'm in Auckland," Wu said of his background.

"I'm affiliated through an academy, the New Zealand Badminton Academy, which my coach is part of it. Now the academy is country-wide but, at that time, [it was] only in Northland."

Northland badminton coach Aaron Spence said he was aware of Wu's affiliation, noting he would go down as a local Commonwealth Games representative in Northland's books.

He agreed Wu's involvement was limited but either way he chose to fly the Northland flag whenever selected for New Zealand.

"He has played under our banner for last four to five years," Spence said. "[The academy] affiliate to us, they're pretty closely aligned and do junior development stuff in schools up here so they tend to register all their players with us."

Spence said it was exciting that Wu made the eight-strong Badminton New Zealand team.

"It's good to see him there because up until six months ago they hadn't actually qualified."

Wu made it clear they didn't aim to just make up the numbers. "Some athletes mistakenly think that now they have made it, they can relax. We want to do well, though, and we must ensure a good preparation so we will continue to work hard."

Spence coached the last Northlander to take part at the Games, John Moody, a true-blue Northlander, in 2006. Moody also went to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Northland has a bright young prospect in Jack Ding, an Educare Northland Sports Talent Hub member.