‘I Was A Kid When I Played Here’: Kirsty Gilmour Returns To Delhi For 10th World Championships

‘I was a kid when I played here’: Kirsty Gilmour returns to Delhi for 10th World Championships (Image Source: IANS)

Indira Gandhi Stadium: Sixteen years after a 17-year-old Kirsty Gilmour arrived in Delhi for her first senior Commonwealth Games, the Scottish shuttler is back in the Indian capital for her 10th World Championships, carrying with her a European title and a vastly different perspective on the sport and life that have grown alongside each other.

“I was a kid when I played here in the first place. But that's like the... I'm the oldest I've ever been, right now,” Gilmour told reporters at the Indira Gandhi Stadium, reflecting on the distance between her Delhi debut in 2010 and her return for the 2026 World Championships.

Gilmour's first experience of senior Commonwealth Games competition came here shortly after she turned 17. She represented Scotland in singles, women's doubles and the team event, an experience she believes was crucial in preparing her for the pressures that followed. “My job in Delhi 2010 was to play as much badminton as possible. I was 17; I played doubles, singles and mixed. And it was just minutes on court. And that helped me so much going into the next Commonwealth Games in my home city of Glasgow, 2014.”

The benefit became evident four years later, when Gilmour returned to the Commonwealth Games on home soil in Glasgow and reached the women's singles final, becoming the first Scottish woman to do so. She went on to win silver.

“When I found myself as the second seed. And if I hadn't had that Delhi experience, then it would have maybe been a whole different ballgame, for sure. So yeah, I think having that competition so early in my career was really, really key.”

Her return to Delhi now comes at another significant point in her career. Gilmour is competing at what she believes is her 10th World Championships, having made her debut at the 2013 edition in Guangzhou. “If my maths is correct, I think this is my 10th World Championships. My first one was in 2013 in Guangzhou.”

For Gilmour, however, the World Championships have not lost their sense of occasion despite the years and the accumulated experience.

“How different is it? Not so different. I think the sense of occasion is pretty consistent over all the years. If my maths is correct, I think this is my 10th World Championships. My first one was in 2013 in Guangzhou. There's a nice atmosphere because there's a different mixture of players at these tournaments. There are some of the lower-ranked players, and then there's the world's top players. So it's a really nice mixture of everyone coming together at such a high-level event. And the atmosphere is really nice so far.”

That longevity has also given Gilmour a unique perspective on a generation of women's singles players that has remained at the top of the sport for more than a decade. Her first World Championships appearance came in the same era as players such as Taiwan's Tai Tzu Ying, whom she faced in Guangzhou.

“Yeah, well, thank you for saying that I'm a part of. I think golden means just age, in my sense. But yeah, in those World Championships I played against Tai Tzu Ying. So yeah, I got a taste of that, her being pretty young at that point. And of course she's retired now, but she was very much a part of that generation. So yeah, I think that speaks to the quality that was there so young. And how we've managed to carry it all the way through to now.”

With several leading women's singles players now into their 30s, Gilmour believes the next Olympic cycle could mark a significant transition for the discipline.

“I think, I'm just theorising here, but maybe LA will be a very revolutionary Olympic Games for women's singles because, as you say, quite a lot of us are 30-plus now. And that's quite typical to maybe ease off or stop. So yeah, maybe badminton will see a big revolution from 2013 all the way to 2028. Maybe that will be seen as, like you say, a golden generation.”

Her own career has continued to evolve within that changing landscape. Earlier this year, Gilmour finally claimed the European women's singles title after reaching the final five times previously and collecting one bronze. The 2026 triumph gave Scotland its first European women's singles gold in the event.

But the significance of that achievement extends beyond another medal. For a player who had repeatedly been the runner-up, the title changed how she could look back on her career. “I think so. For me, it's very nice. I think I've spent a lot of my career being defined by silver medals. And nearly, and almost. But I think it's really nice to have something on my CV that is definitive. And I can just say that I'm European champion. It's just a very calming thing for me to be able to definitely say about myself and my career.”

And as she prepares for another World Championships, Gilmour says the biggest changes have not necessarily been confined to the badminton court.

She has had to build a life around a career that has demanded constant travel, training and competition, something she believes can be particularly demanding for European players who do not necessarily grow up within a centralised national system.

“And trying to fit the two together and manage massive life moments, but also try to be the best badminton player that you can be, is so difficult.”

“For a lot of the European players, we don't have so much of a structure. We don't live at the National Centre; we don't have rooms. We have to build our own life with a house and a partner and all those kinds of things. So it's maybe a little bit more to manage. It's not as kind of set up for you.”

That balancing act, she believes, has ultimately shaped her resilience. “But I think that's made me quite a resilient and tough person, and I wouldn't be without badminton. I wouldn't be resilient in badminton if I didn't have that to have on the other side.”

There is also a sense of perspective that comes only after years of living with the highs and lows of elite sport.

“And it's funny because when tough things happen in your life, outside of badminton, you always have badminton to go to. And who else gets to go to work and scream at the top of their lungs? If they want to, I could just hit one in the neck. I did that last week. You could just scream as loud as you want. No one else gets to do that.”

There is also a sense of perspective that comes only after years of living with the highs and lows of elite sport.

Sixteen years after Delhi introduced a teenage Gilmour to the demands of senior international badminton, the city now finds her at another milestone, not as the 17-year-old looking simply for minutes on court, but as a European champion and one of the most experienced players in the women's singles field.

Article Source: IANS