After a nice Christmas break it was back into competition for Tenby’s Jasmine Owen who has enjoyed sporting success playing badminton for Wales.

First up was representing her country as the No. 1 player in the U13 Celtic Challenge during February in Edinburgh.

Jasmine played well under Welsh Junior Coach Nicolas Strange and contributed to the team winning silver at this prestigious international team event.

More training was to follow back in West Wales under the coaching of Huw John and Matthew Hughes. This was in preparation for a double header up in Leigh at the Lancashire U15 Silver and Bronze events, where in the singles event Jasmine saw off the No.1 seed Kirtti Sathyanathan before beating Jersey’s Grace Rentsch to claim gold in a tense and skilful final.

Jasmine, only playing singles on this weekend was now ready for Sunday’s U15 Bronze, where she beat all four opponents in her group, before losing in the semi-final.

All in all it was a successful trip with Jasmine winning nine matches and losing one to end up with a gold and bronze medal.

On Saturday, March 11, after her 13th birthday, Jasmine teamed up with fellow West Walian Daniel Clarke in the mixed doubles at the Herefordshire U15 Bronze event.

The pair gelled quickly and being seeded 3/4 won each group match as expected, before a tough semi-final against second seeds Jacob Marron and Evie Pike but they prevailed 21-16 before being outplayed in the final by first seeds Joe Howells and Grace Sherwin 21-17, to claim a very well deserved silver medal.

In the singles Jasmine dominated her group before going on to win gold beating first seed Evie Pike 21-9 in the semi-final and second seed Grace Sherwin 21-14 in the final.

Jasmine teamed up with North Walian Jessica Ding for the girl’s doubles but failed to make it through the group having lost to first seeds and eventual Gold medallists Evie Pike and Grace Sherwin 21-18.

Next up for Jasmine was the Welsh Junior Nationals U15s, singles, doubles and mixed on March 18.

Jasmine was able to pick up medals in all three events, with gold in the doubles with fellow Pembrokeshire player Lowri Hart, silver in the mixed doubles with regular partner Dan Kite and silver in the singles.

Through April Jasmine has won the Welsh Satellite plus U17 singles and doubles as well as representing Wales (U15) at the Junior Olve tournament in Belgium.