The evidence of a hard workout is all over the hardwood floor at the Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre.
Hundreds of badminton shuttles litter the court and sweat is pouring off the face of Jarin Davison after his 45-minute training session.
On the four or five days a week he can't find a playing partner close to his ability, the 17-year-old has his own personal coach throwing armloads of shuttles to different parts of the court to get him moving. And once he's warmed up, those shuttles are coming at him hard and fast off the racquet of his coach, who also happens to be his mother.
Lisa Davison, the longtime coach of the Kelly Road secondary school team and founder of the North Central Badminton Academy, doesn't mind putting in the time it takes to put Jarin to work following his provincial team training program and the repetitious drills that are involved.
All the hard work over the years has paid off for Jarin, the first northern B.C. badminton player to ever make a provincial team. He was named to the under-19 team which won gold at the Western Canadian team championships in Saskatoon, Jan. 13-15.
The only local player close to Jarin in ability, 22-year-old UNBC student Jason Ong of Richmond, will be returning to the Lower Mainland in April. Lisa is able to keep Jarin's physical and mental skills sharp by running him through the weekly training plans sent to them by national team coach Ram Nayyar. But for Jarin to reach his potential as a badminton player, once he graduates high school at Kelly Road this year he's going to have to move to a bigger city, where he'll have more playing partners. He's pondering a move to Vancouver this summer so he can begin studies in the fall in BCIT's instrument technician program.
Since September, Jarin has attended the Canadian Sport School Northern B.C., where he goes to afternoon classes at the UNBC campus with other student athletes. They train together at the Sport Centre and class time is flexible to allow them to get to competitions and training programs out of town. Jarin loves the competitive environment, testing himself against other students and excelling in the speed and agility drills.
"I've improved so much because of it," said Jarin, who holds a top-eight ranking among junior (under-19) singles players in B.C.
"To be the only guy up here and still be up with all the ones who get top-tier training every day, it feels really good to know that all my hard work with the Sport School appears to be paying off."
Lisa, a former high school provincial silver medalist at Kelly Road, still competes in provincial masters tournaments. With Nayyar's involvement, she became more engaged in Jarin's physical training last year once they knew he'd been accepted into the Sport School, an offshoot of Engage Sport North (formerly PacificSport Northern B.C.).
"Every top athlete needs to have a team of people surrounding them," said Lisa.
On March 1, Jarin will travel to Denmark for four weeks of training with coach Rune Ulsing, a colleague of Nayyar's, who recommended Jarin for the program. He spent six weeks in Denmark in November and December 2015. It was an eye-opener for Jarin, which brought home the reality that to be the best you have to get serious about training.
"Everyone there just does as much as they can in the time they have - there's no goofing around, everyone's listening to the coach all the time and following the drills," he said.
Davison is hoping the month he'll spend overseas working with Ulsing will prepare him well for the provincial championships in Richmond, April 14-16. He'll team up for the doubles provincial tournament that weekend with Jonah Lee of Vancouver. If Davison does well, he'll go to the national championships in Moncton, N.B., in May
Davison's 12-tournament badminton season started in September and wraps up in May. At the ClearOne New Year's tournament in Richmond he finished second in U-19 singles, third in men's doubles and fourth in mixed doubles (playing with Maddie Buss of Vancouver).
"I had to win three (singles) matches to get to the final and all of them were hard," said Jarin. "My mindset was just to play my hardest, I didn't expect the result. I just wanted to play as good as I could and it turned out to be a success. It made me realize I'm a contender for the top spot."
Jarin, who won a Premier's Aboriginal Youth Excellence in Sport award this year, teamed up with Courteney Anderson of Prince George to win bronze at the North American Indigenous Games in Regina. He plans to go to Toronto for the 2017 NAIG in July. He's also shooting for a spot on Team B.C. for the 2019 Canada Winter Games in Red Deer.
The first school tournament of the season (for Grades 4-12) is set for Saturday at the College of New Caledonia. An adult doubles tournament for players of all abilities will follow from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. The North Central Academy will host an adult tournament in April 28-30.
