Badminton star Lizzie

A Formby schoolgirl has been chosen to represent England in a number of international badminton tournaments.

14-year old Lizzie Tolman, a current Year 10 pupil at Merchant Taylors’ Girls’ School, competed in the under 15 European championships as one of eight players to represent the country.

Lizzie played in both the mixed doubles and girls doubles, where she reached the quarter finals in the mixed category but was knocked out by the top seeds who eventually went on to win.

Together with her partner Fee Teng Liew, Lizzie beat the number two seeds in the girls doubles in a very close three set semi-final.

Lizzie and Fee are an established doubles pair and have won all domestic under 15 events this year. However, this time they came away with a silver medal after losing in the final to a strong Dutch side.

Two days after returning from Switzerland, Lizzie flew out to Denmark where she played for England in the eight nations, returning with a bronze medal in the team event.

Following that, she competed in both the English under 17 and English under 15 nationals in Surrey.
Lizzie is now due to compete for Lancashire in the inter county championships where Lancashire is seeded fourth out of 36 counties.

The tournament will be played over four days and over 400 players will be staying at Nottingham University, making it a favourite amongst the players. The day after this finishes Lizzie flies out to Belgium to compete for England in Brussels.

Despite a hectic training schedule, Lizzie still manages to excel in her studies and is heading for a strong set of GCSE results next year. Her school and family are very proud of her hard work and modest attitude towards her success.