TELECOMMUNICATIONS company LIME yesterday continued its long association with the Jamaica Badminton Association (JBA) by announcing a $2.9 million-sponsorship of the schools league and inner-city programme.

The partnership was celebrated with a luncheon at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel yesterday.

Top junior Dennis Coke, who in August became the country’s first badminton representative at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, top male singles player Gareth Henry and Olympian Nigella Saunders are all alumnae of the JBA’s schools league or inner-city programme.

Henry was also recently selected as a beneficiary of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) Olympic Solidarity scholarship programme for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Saunders and Charles Pyne were previous recipients of the Olympic Solidarity scholarship.

“We feel strongly about this commitment,” said LIME’s regional vice-president of Corporate Communications Errol Miller.

“We have no doubt that the standard to which the game has gone is partly because of our support.

Miller said he hoped other sponsors would feel the need to come on board the badminton programme: “There is so much to encourage… other companies should join,” he said.

JBA president Vishu Tolan spoke of the value of LIME’s commitment to the local sport which is considered by many to be ‘minor’.

That sponsorship includes backing the association to the tune of over $10 million over the last six years.

“This is good money. It will allow the sport to grow,” he said.

St Anne’s and Haile Selassie were crowned girls and boys champions of the School’s Badminton League last weekend, while the Knock-out competition and Junior league are scheduled to begin in early 2011.

The inner-city tournament is held at Haile Selassie with competition in Under-11 through to Under-19 categories.

Tolan encouraged LIME as well to help the body fund next year’s Pan American Junior Championships which Jamaica will host from July 24-31.