Olympic Dreams: Rajiv Ouseph

Name: Rajiv Ouseph

Date of birth: 30/8/1986, age 25

Career highlight: Won the 2010 US Open Men’s Singles

Did you know? Originally wanting to pursue a career in journalism, Rajiv studied Media and Communications at Loughborough University.

Brought up in Hounslow, the London Olympics will be a very special occasion for Team GB’s men’s singles representative, Rajiv Ouseph. As he says:

“The Olympics is a once in a lifetime experience and I’m honoured to be representing Team GB in my home city of London. Having grown up here, it’s even more exciting to be competing in front of a home crowd and knowing you have great support on the door step.”

His badminton potential was emphatically showcased from an early age as Ouseph won the 2005 European Junior Championships, as well as every English national title between the ages of 13 and 19.

And with a series of impressive results over the past couple of years which has seen him become British number 1 and world number 19, there is a new level of expectation on Ouseph’s shoulders, something he has not experienced before.

He won the English National Singles in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, the first to win four in a row since Darren Hall in 1991. He attained his highest ranking of 18 after winning the 2010 US Open, before claiming bronze in the European Championships and silver in the Commonwealth Games the same year.

The format for the singles at the Olympics will be a group stage followed by knock-out, while the favourite to win overall is the Chinese Lin Dan, regarded by many as the greatest badminton player in history. He won gold in Beijing and is also the reigning world champion, so will take some beating.

To read all the other profiles in the Olympic Dreams series, visit York Vision's London 2012 page.