Prince Rupert’s own Adrian Steve Liu has had aspirations of playing badminton in the Olympics since he was young, and after years of competing all around the world and winning countless championships including recently taking the top spot at the 2011 Yonex Canadian National Championships in Toronto with partner Derrick Ng, the pair are now poised to represent Canada at the 2012 Olympic Games.
“I was quite surprised [to find out about ranking 25 in men’s doubles]. It feels great to be listed amongst all those great players,” Liu told the Prince Rupert
Northern View.
Liu’s interest in badminton grew after he graduated from Prince Rupert Secondary School in 2001 when he pursued post-secondary education at Langara College in Vancouver. While attending the school, Liu tried-out, and made the school’s badminton team and got the opportunity to meet ex-Olympian Darryl Yung who is also the founder of ClearOne, one of Canada’s top badminton training centres.
During his time of training at Langara, Liu would obtain two Men’s Doubles Provincial titles and a second place finish in the Canada College Athlete Association Badminton Challenge.
As well, during Liu’s forth year at school, he met Derrick Ng who became his long-time partner in badminton.
After completing school, Liu managed to train more frequently becoming a full-time athlete, training under the direction of Yung, Ronne Runtulalo, Peter Huang and Sandi Arto. During this time, Liu would train for multiple hours a day, would travel to train in countries such as Indonesia and to compete in around ten international tournaments a year.
In 2006/2007, after reconnecting with partner Derrick Ng, the pair won the BC Provincial championship title, which would only the start to what they would earn together. A year later, Liu and Ng were selected to represent Canada at the Pan-American Championships in Peru reigning very victorious at the XV Peru International Challenge in Lima, taking home two team championship titles.
Last year Liu and Ng continued racking up even more top spots in Pan American tournaments. The team took semi-final results at 2010 Pan American Championships, and the Puerto Rico International Challenge, as well as taking finalist results at the Brazil International and Santo Domingo International.
Currently, the pair has been ranked 25 in the world for Men’s Doubles, and 49 in the world for mix doubles, which makes them poised and a very likely candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England, a life long dream of Adrian Steven Liu.
Liu is presently training at ClearOne Badminton in Vancouver under the direction of Yung and his partner Bobby Milroy.