Selena Piek
Selena Piek is a Dutch badminton player who specializes in doubles. She won the gold medals at the European Games in 2019 in the women's doubles, and in 2023 in the mixed doubles. She was part of the Badminton Europe Athletes' Commission from 2016 to 2020.
Since joining the national team when she was 15, Piek has shown her talent in playing doubles. She won gold in the mixed doubles and silver medal in the girls' doubles at the 2009 European Junior Championships. She reached a career high of world number 7 in the women's doubles with Eefje Muskens and number 8 in the mixed doubles with Robin Tabeling. She participated in two events, mixed and women's doubles at two Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro and 2020 in Tokyo, where she reached the quarter-finals in 2016 with Muskens and in 2020 with Cheryl Seinen. She also participated at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics in the mixed doubles event with Robin Tabeling.
Career
Piek started playing badminton at a young age and left her home in Weesp to join the Dutch National junior badminton squad at Papendal when she was 15 years old. Ever since then she lived close by Papendal in the Dutch city of Arnhem. Her early international glory was together first with partner Iris Tabeling, then with partner Eefje Muskens in the women's doubles event and first also with partner Jacco Arends in the mixed doubles event.Her last women's doubles partner was Cheryl Seinen and currently her only focus internationally is in the mixed doubles event with Robin Tabeling. She won her first National doubles title in 2012 with Iris Tabeling. Thereafter, she won the 2014, 2015 and 2016 editions of Dutch National Badminton Championships with Eefje Muskens. She won another three National doubles events with partner Cheryl Seinen in 2018, 2019 and 2020. She has also won the mixed doubles National championships title seven times since 2012 with four different partners.
Piek was the gold medalist at the 2019 European Games in the women's doubles event with Cheryl Seinen.
She reached the Olympics quarter finals twice; at the Rio Olympics 2016 with Eefje Muskens and the Tokyo Olympics 2020 with Cheryl Seinen. In the Dutch Eredivisie league, she is playing for Duinwijck in Haarlem, while in Denmark in the Elite league her club is Højbjerg Badminton Klub.
2023: Second European Games gold
Piek and her partner, Tabeling, started the 2023 season on the Asian tour with unsatisfactory results. They had to accept defeat in the early rounds at the Malaysia and India Opens as well as at the Indonesia Masters in January. Their performance then improved in March, reaching the quarter-finals at the All England Open and the semi-finals at the Swiss Open. In July, Piek won her second gold medal at the European Games by winning the mixed doubles title with Tabeling, where she previously in 2019 won the women's doubles with Cheryl Seinen. In the remaining tournaments in 2023, Piek and Tabeling did not win any BWF World Tour, with their best were reaching the quarter-finals at the Hylo Open.2024: 7th medals in the European Championships
In the first semester of 2024, Piek and her partner, Robin Tabeling has not won any single title. The best results that they achieved were a semi-finalists in the German, All England, and Swiss Opens. She then captured her seventh medal in the European Championships by winning the mixed doubles bronze, after losing to 1st seeded Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Bøje in the semi-finals.File:Épreuve Badminton Jeux Olympiques 2024 Arena Porte Chapelle - Paris XVIII - 2024-07-28 - 51.jpg|thumb|Piek and Tabeling during a match against Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yoo-jung at the 2024 Summer Olympics
Piek made her third appearance at the Olympics by competing in the mixed doubles with Tabeling, but the duo was eliminated in the group stage.
Achievements
European Games
Women's doubles| Year | Venue | Partner | Opponent | Score | Result | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2019 | Falcon Club, Minsk, Belarus |  European ChampionshipsWomen's doubles
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