For­mer T&T Bad­minton As­so­ci­a­tion and Caribbean Bad­minton As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent and Tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor, Wen­dell Labastide has passed away.

Ac­cord­ing to his close friend Der­win Re­nales, the 61-year-old Labastide, who was the pres­i­dent of Shut­tle Force Bad­minton Club, com­plained of feel­ing un­well and warm on Wednes­day and went in­to his van at his To­co Road, San­gre Grande home to re­lax a bit where he was even­tu­al­ly found slumped over.

Re­nales, in re­flect­ing on the life of his close friend Labastde—who was al­so a mem­ber of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (T&TOC)—not­ed that Labastide was al­ways will­ing to as­sist the play­ers in any way pos­si­ble.

“He was in­volved in the sport for close to 40 years and I have worked with him side by side at nu­mer­ous tour­na­ments and his pass­ing is no doubt a big loss to our club as well the en­tire bad­minton fra­ter­ni­ty,” stat­ed Re­nales.