Team GB’s Ben Lane and Sean Vendy want to fulfil their childhood dreams and change their lives by clinching Olympic badminton gold in the men’s doubles this summer in Paris.
Lane and Vendy, who have competed as a pair since their youth, were announced on Thursday as the duo to represent GB this year, months after they won the YONEX Swiss Open in March.
The pair want to go one step further than their coach Nathan Robertson, who claimed a silver at Athens 2004 with his mixed doubles partner Gail Emms.
Speaking to the PA news agency at London Stock Exchange, Vendy said: “It’s a childhood dream.
“It would be life-changing for me, it doesn’t compare really with any other event we’ve played, it’s on a different pedestal, it’s miles ahead.”
Lane said: “It would be by far the biggest achievement which we could achieve in our sport.
“We grew up watching the Olympics, we watched our coach Nathan get a silver medal. If we returned with a gold it doesn’t get much better than that in your whole career and so that’s the dream.”
Vendy and Lane exited at the group stage during the last Olympics in Tokyo.
The pair, who qualified through the Race to Paris rankings, believe their chemistry away from the court can give them an advantage ahead of their second Olympics later this year.
“It (friendship) can definitely help us. Because we know each other so well it can help me understand what he’s going through or it can help him understand what I’m going through on the court,” Vendy said.
“We can always talk openly about what we’re feeling like if there are nerves. It’s a good thing for us to be so close off court and also on court.”
It’s a childhood dream. It would be life-changing for me— Sean Vendy
“We’ve been playing together since we were 12 and we’ve spent a lot of time together,” Lane added.
“When we have time off we also go on holiday together and I guess it helps the partnership.
“I wanted to play doubles in badminton since I was a young kid. I preferred it to singles because you’ve got someone on the court next to you so if you’re struggling you can help each other. It’s great to have Sean next to me because he knows me so well.”
Kirsty Gilmour, who made her Olympic debut in 2016, was announced as GB’s women’s singles player.
“Selection never gets old,” she told Badminton England. “It’s maybe a bit cliché but it’s just as special as the first one.
“I’m maybe a bit better-versed in what’s going on and all the build-up and pageantry around it and yet it’s still super exciting. I’m really looking forward to it.”
