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Badminton camps canceled due to lack of feathers

Bird flu could claim some unlikely victims -- the Olympic aspirations of India's badminton players.

The Badminton Association of India announced yesterday it was calling off training camps ahead of two key qualifying events for this summer's Olympic Games as a result of a shortage of quality feather shuttlecocks caused by a government ban.

Three months ago India's agriculture ministry barred the import of feathers because of the bird flu menace in Asia. Top shuttles are made with goose feathers, most of them from China and Taiwan.

Since then the association has been unable to buy feather shuttles, chairman V. K. Verma said.

"Abandoning the national squad's training camp ahead of the Thomas and Uber Cup qualifiers is a huge setback," Verma said.

The men's Thomas Cup and women's Uber cup will be played from Feb. 19 to Feb. 24 in Vietnam.

Shuttle manufacturers had offered to ship chemically treated shuttles that passed a bird flu inspection by Hong Kong authorities, but the Indian government was yet to lift the ban.

This shuttle shortage could also affect the Indian Open badminton tournament scheduled for April 1 to April 6 in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

Shuttles can also be made with plastic skirts, but the flight of feather and plastic shuttles is marginally different and most top tournaments are played with feather shuttles. Plastic shuttles are rare in Asia as a result of the lower cost of feathers.

More than 200 people have been killed by bird flu since the virus began devastating poultry stocks in Asia in late 2003.

Bird flu is hard for humans to catch, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people. So far, most human cases have been traced to close contact with sick birds. The virus has spread rapidly throughout Asia -- partly because of a lack of awareness.
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