| TEXT BY BWF DEV SUKUMAR
Micah Henares Cruz gets emotional very quickly. She tears up when she talks about her favourite Olympic memory – the Paris 2024 match between Tai Tzu Ying and Ratchanok Intanon, which had ended with both in tears, for Tai had limped through the match with a knee injury at her final Olympic match.
For Cruz, the sixth seed at the VICTOR BWF World Junior Championships, her emotional side takes a toll, particularly in team events, for she takes on the concerns of her teammates. At the Suhandinata Cup last week, for instance: “I was so insecure because during the team event I just felt so much pressure that I took on myself, it was like I forgot how to play badminton, it was like my feeling was locked, my wrist would be cold, so coming into this (the individual championships), I was so insecure and scared that I wouldn’t perform. I didn’t care about winning, I just wanted to perform as well as I could.
“Overall I do better at individual events than team events. Because I really care about a lot of people, I care about my team, and that’s the bad part of it. I care too much about what my team requires, that my teammates wouldn’t be able to catch up, unnecessary pressure on myself, and that isn’t good.”
That was why, Cruz said, despite falling to China’s Zhang Yi Xin on Wednesday in the Round of 32 today, she was satisfied with her performance. She was creating the play, exploring the angles, forcing Zhang to do the running. The Chinese proved more than equal to the task as the match wore on, scampering all over the court to keep the shuttle in play, and took her place in the next round with a 15-13 15-8 result.
“It was very tough, but overall I’m really happy with my result,” Cruz said after she came off court. “When I’m playing a harder country I want them to yell against me, because that way they’re trying really hard, and she was yelling, so I feel really accomplished.
“I can do better,” she continued. “You can never be satisfied with your performance. But as of now, considering how insecure I was about me playing, with the team and everything, I played really well.
“I’m happy that I was able to play very freely today.”
She references her favourite Olympic memory of Tai Tzu Ying and Intanon – “I cry every single time I watch that… it’s like, when they hugged, I was like, oh my god. I had to turn around because I couldn’t watch it” – as she too will become part of the Olympic family next month, having qualified to the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar.
The tears came easily once again when she learned she had made it to the YOG.
“I worked so hard for this and I really started feeling teary-eyed because I’m so thankful for my coaches and my parents because it’s like they put so much, they invested so much to me and it’s the Youth Olympics, it’s not the same thing as the Olympics, but the Youth Olympics is such a big tournament and I’m so glad that I can show what I can do.
“It’s always been a dream of mine.”
For Cruz, who is in her second World Juniors, the tournament, and the sport in general, fits with her whole personality of taking everyone along.
“I’m just such an emotional person because I care a lot about everybody. You know, it’s just like, I feel a lot.
“I think why I chose badminton is because I really enjoyed the community. The community is so nice. If you’re on court, they are so competitive, but off court it’s just like we’re all kids at the end of the day. And I think why I chose sports in general is that just like badminton, you can’t lie to yourself.
“And I just feel the most true and the most comfortable of myself, the version of myself when I play the sport.”
