Hans Abbeloos
How did you end up in the badminton world?
After trying several sports, I started playing badminton in OLVE when I was about 13 years old. The next season I was already allowed to join the regional selection. Now I only train once a week and I try to play some matches during the weekends.How did you end up in the JOT Team?
When I was about 16, our trainer asked us if anybody was interested to help out for a couple of hours during the tournament. The tournament was called the International Youth Tournament (IYT) then. Although I was only meant to help out for a few hours, I stuck around and hours became days. Two years later I joined the organization team of the IYT. After one year the IYT team decided to stop organizing the tournament. Some of the younger people of the organization team kept on dreaming about the tournament and finally we decided to start again under a new name. This is how the Junior OLVE Tournament was born. Later this became the Victor JOT, thanks to our sponsor. This year will be the seventh edition of the Junior OLVE Tournament.What do you do when you´re not busy with badminton?
A lot of my time goes to my job of course. I‘m working as project manager in a Belgian financial institution. My hobbies besides badminton are watching football (Royal Antwerp Football Club) and I have recently started playing Racketlon (a combination of Table tennis, Badminton, Squash and Tennis). In my private life, things are also going rather fast. My girlfriend and I have bought a new house and we will get married in May 2010.What do you do in the JOT Team?
In the JOT team I am the Tournament director. This means that I am responsible that all goes well before, during and after the tournament. I try to coordinate everything and I will do anything to assure that all players can enjoy their visit to our tournament. You will quickly notice that I am the only one who is not ‘working’ during the tournament. As long as all goes as planned, I can be found walking around and talking to coaches, visitors, VIP’s and the other members of the organization team.
