By adding Audrey Guérin from the Arvida Polyvalent School, who trained with the Harfangs this season, the six badistas supervised by head coach <a href="https://www.archysport.com/2024/05/lea-guerin-leads-harfangs-to-success-at-badminton-provincials-a-season-of-skill-building-and-unity/" title="Léa Guérin Leads Harfangs to Success at Badminton Provincials: A Season of Skill Building and Unity”>Léa Guérin represented a quarter of the delegation from Saguenay-Lac-Saint- Jean to the Provincials. The Odyssey Mustangs delegation was the second largest.
Juliette Blackburn, Zoé Lavoie, Simon Gonzalez-Gagné, Raphaël Gaudreault and Louis-Simon Bourassa were all able to live the rich experience of a major competition. And even if they returned without a medal, the skills acquired will be worth gold for the rest of their journey.
“I always organized myself to know where my young people were in order to have a united team. They were always around me or thereabouts,” noted Léa Guérin, who is in her first season as head coach of the Harfangs, after a few years as an assistant.
A badminton player during high school, the 22-year-old quickly had the opportunity to join the coaching staff after graduating from high school. His approach has proven itself this year.
“Above all, I want young people to love badminton and this is how I encourage them to play sport,” explained the bachelor’s student in preschool and school education.
“I am still used to managing groups of young people. Maybe a little less with this age group, but as soon as I finished high school, I immediately took the plunge into coaching so that allowed me to quickly gain experience.”
— Léa Guérin
It is clear that the philosophy advocated by Léa Guérin received the approval of her protégés. Starting with Zoé Lavoie, a secondary two student who was in her first full season of badminton. She still earned a place at the Provincials, by virtue of her gold medal in the regional final.
“I find her very kind and she is really dynamic. She always comes up with good ideas in training and you can easily be friends with Léa. It’s really easy with her,” praised young Zoé in all honesty, who intends to continue playing badminton next season.
“Our team is really united, compared to what I have seen in other teams,” she analyzed.
In Sainte-Thérèse, Raphaël Gaudreault and Louis-Simon Bourassa formed a team. A record of two victories in six games, in hotly contested matches.
“It went better than I thought it was going to go,” Louis-Simon first admitted.
“We said to ourselves that the regions were going to beat us because there are quite a few more of them, but we did well against good regions which made it far in the tournament,” continued Raphaël. We were competitive throughout the tournament. In the match against Laval, the region which won the tournament, we led 11-9 at one point. It didn’t end well, but we had our chances.”
The two secondary four students are in some ways following in the footsteps of their father, who played badminton when they were younger. “Our fathers have been playing for 25 years,” said Raphaël Gaudreault, not at all embarrassed to make his father look old!
From an overall point of view, Léa Guérin gave a positive assessment of the tournament which marked the end of the competitive season. Until the end of the school year, the Harfangs players continue to train on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but above all for fun.
“We play three hours a week so we have less training time than many teams we have faced, but despite everything, our players did well, with a few victories and several close matches,” mentioned the coach. -leader of the Harfangs.
Regional recognition
Léa Guérin’s efforts were also recognized by the Quebec Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean Student Sports Network a few weeks ago. During the annual gala of excellence, the head of the badminton team at École lycée des Bâtisseurs received the title of Emerging Coach par excellence. Not so bad, in her first season as head instructor.
“It was said that I knew how to seek help to create training sessions and that I opened the door to those who wanted to try badminton,” humbly summarized Léa Guérin.
