Jenjira Stadelmann, who grew up in Thailand, just wanted to spend her holidays with her father. Then she got stuck in a foreign country. An amazing life story in which the Bernese mountain dog “Bäri” also appears.
Jenjira Stadelmann’s tactics on the field are designed to look for the offensive.
Siegfried Dammrath / Imago
When Jenjira Stadelmann found it difficult to find her way around Switzerland, she followed a ritual: She sat in the Rosengarten Park in Bern and read books. In German. Because she knew that the key to integration in the new home would be the language. Her favorite book was “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
When she first set foot in Switzerland at the age of 16, she didn’t know a single word of German, which is so different from her native Thai. Back then, in 2016, Stadelmann actually just wanted to spend her spring break with her father. And she would have been happy to see snow for once in her life. But the trip turned out to be much more than she expected.
Stadelmann is now the Swiss number one in badminton. There is a good chance that she will represent the country at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer. Last year at the European Games in Poland she won the bronze medal in the women’s singles. She had already given up her dream of a sports career.
She wanted to study veterinary medicine and become a veterinarian
Jenjira Stadelmann, known to everyone as “Jenny,” grew up in Chiang Mai, a city in the north of Thailand. Her father had emigrated there as a young man and started a family; Jenny was born as her parents’ second child. She was athletically gifted, and tennis was an option at first. But this was soon discarded because Jenny would have had to constantly train outside in temperatures around forty degrees – her parents thought that was bad for the skin. So a similar sport was sought that would protect Jenny from the scorching sun. The solution: badminton, a sport in which the shuttles are accelerated to more than 400 kilometers per hour.
Because of her potential, Stadelmann was allowed to visit a support center in the capital Bangkok. But there were always setbacks. Young Jenny was a bit fragile. She had back problems caused by a misaligned spine – and homesickness; There are a good eight hundred kilometers between Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
And then she had to decide whether she wanted to focus on top-class sport or go to secondary school. Combining both within a dual system, as is known in Switzerland, is unusual in Thailand. And because Stadelmann couldn’t imagine becoming a badminton professional at the time, she wanted to start studying veterinary medicine. Her career goal: to become a veterinarian. Her family had always had animals at home: rabbits, cats, dogs, birds, turtles and fish. But then something drastic happened.
Her father returned to Switzerland to look after his father and take a job at Zurich Airport. And Jenny spent the aforementioned spring break with him in 2016. When he barely had any time for her in the fourth and final week because of work, the teenager needed something to do. So she unexpectedly ended up in a badminton camp in eastern Switzerland.
Stadelmann’s talent was immediately noticed there, as was Hanspeter “Hampi” Kolb, who has been her mentor ever since. Ways were sought to enable her to pursue a sports career in Switzerland. And the Appenzellerland sports school in Trogen actually offered her a training position and a room in an Indonesian host family. But the time pressure was high. Stadelmann had to decide within two weeks whether she wanted to give up almost everything she had built up in Thailand at the age of 16. Except for her father, all family members stayed in Chiang Mai. Her parents are now in a long-distance relationship.
Stadelmann took the risk in a foreign country, but the beginning was difficult. She was shy and afraid of making mistakes. There was a lack of social contacts, tears shed, and homesickness arose again. “I’m just a mommy’s child,” Stadelmann says later at a meeting. At that meeting she is very well behaved and speaks Swiss German.
Stadelmann also invested a lot in identifying with his new home. She took private lessons, completed courses at the Migros Club School and trained as a fitness and exercise trainer. And she graduated from the top sports RS and can now call herself “Private Stadelmann”. She now lives independently in a shared apartment in Bümpliz and has even found access to local pets; She regularly visits the Bernese mountain dog “Bäri” with a family.
In Thailand it wouldn’t have been a disadvantage for them that the king is considered a badminton fan
There are hardly any badminton players in Switzerland who can keep up with her level. But that’s fine with Stadelmann. She never liked the competition that exists in this sport in Thailand and other Asian countries. Although their prospects might have been better there. In Thailand it would not have been a disadvantage for Stadelmann that the king is considered a badminton fan. And the Indian world champion Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, for example, regularly makes it into Forbes’ list of the twenty highest-earning female athletes in the world; her annual income is estimated at around seven million dollars.
Jenjira Stadelmann in March 2023 in a duel with the Indian world champion Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, who has become a multiple millionaire in badminton.
Youtube
Stadelmann would have had a more difficult time qualifying for the Olympic Games in Asia. As 66th in the world rankings, she occupies a place that would just about entitle her to take part in Paris. But she is currently struggling with wrist problems, which is why she is skipping the home tournament in Basel that is currently taking place. And Stadelmann has trouble with breaks, and her coaches know that too. They report that she is not the most patient, and that is also evident on the badminton court. They want more consistency in their game. Stadelmann’s tactics are designed to look for the offensive.
Stadelmann is now only in Thailand for two weeks a year, visiting relatives. At some point she wants to have her own family. She says: “I can’t imagine being a badminton professional until I’m forty.” Who knows, maybe one day she’ll run into a little prince while reading in Bern’s Rose Garden Park.