Oil is a Year 11 international student from Thailand who is an all-round sports person. In the three terms Oil has been at Columba, she had already shown her skills in many sporting codes, especially badminton.

Oil first started learning badminton in Thailand when she was in Year 1. She was often sick when she was a child, so her parents thought it would be beneficial for her to start learning badminton – but Oil was not keen to learn because she would have to go to lessons all by herself. Despite her young age, she had to overcome her fears of going to lessons twice a week by herself.

Slowly, Oil’s confidence, badminton skills and her health improved. Badminton training became fun rather than a chore. By the time Oil was in Year 3, she was training three to four times a week for three hours each session and in Year 5 she competed in her first club competition. By Year 6, Oil was training four afternoons a week for three hours a day and also weekend early morning training sessions from 6am till 8am. This training prepared Oil for her first badminton win at an inter-school badminton competition when she was 11 years old.

Badminton training was not always easy for Oil. She had to overcome many challenges, including playing against older boys were who were taller and stronger than her, but she never gave up. She persevered and always gave it her best.

Since starting at Columba in Term 3 last year, Oil has been a part of the 2022 winning Senior Winter Quad Badminton Team, is playing in this year's senior A Badminton Team and last month was selected to be a part of the South Island under 19 Rep Team heading up to Palmerston North in the next school holidays. She is really looking forward to the opportunity to compete in the nationals in July. In the future, she would also like to coach some younger Columba badminton players as well.

Other than Badminton, Oil enjoys a variety of other sports including skateboarding and wakeboarding. She has also played squash, touch and basketball for Columba teams.

We wish Oil all the best up at the nationals and we look forward to hearing about the experience upon her return.