From Olympia to the County Cup: padel fever continues with a generation that discovered the sport before Britain did
Just weeks after the world’s best padel players brought Premier Padel to Britain for the first time, the spotlight switches from Olympia London to county pride and a generation of players who discovered the sport long before Britain’s current padel boom.
More than 20,000 spectators attended the London Premier Padel P1 earlier this month, with sell out crowds over the final weekend providing a striking indication of how quickly padel is growing as both a participation and spectator sport.
Now, from 4 to 6 September at Rocket Padel Bristol, over 220 Over 60 players will provide a very different but equally important picture of that growth.
The Over 60 Padel County Cup will be the first event staged under the revamped Padel County Cup partnership between UK PADEL and the LTA, bringing together Men’s, Women’s and Mixed teams representing counties from across Britain.
While padel might feel like Britain’s newest sporting obsession, some of those competing in Bristol come from the generation that discovered the game decades before today’s boom. Padel arrived on Spain’s Costa del Sol in the 1970s, while the original British Paddle Association was formed in 1992 by British expats passionate about the sport.
From the pioneers who first encountered padel in Spain to a new generation watching the world’s best players sell out Olympia, the journey of British padel can be seen on court in Bristol next weekend.
With thanks to UK Padel
