\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBENDIGO para athlete Caleb Logan has never been one to shy away from a sporting or any other kind of challenge.<\/p>\n
His next two could well be his biggest yet.<\/p>\n
Logan \u2013 a five-time best and fairest with Essendon in the Victorian Wheelchair Football League (VWFL) and an Australian para volleyball representative \u2013 is turning his hand to two new sporting pursuits \u2013 badminton and wheelchair rugby league.<\/p>\n
He is not afraid to admit he has had little exposure to both sports, and in the case of wheelchair rugby, none at all.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old won\u2019t exactly be easing his way in to the cut and thrust of competition.<\/p>\n
His first foray into competitive badminton will be in a pair of international events being hosted in his hometown at the Bendigo Eaglehawk Badminton Stadium from next week.<\/p>\n
Logan will fly the flag for the locals at the Oceania Para Badminton Championships (16-19 October), before backing up in the Australian Para Badminton International (20-25 October).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a baptism of fire for a player whose experience in the sport is limited to some social badminton in his younger years.<\/p>\n
Reminded he would need to be on his game against his international competitors, Logan quipped: \u201cI\u2019m not sure what that is yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m keen to test myself and see where it leads.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I\u2019m not sure what to expect against the international players, but I guess I\u2019ll soon find out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logan, who has ramped up his training at the Eaglehawk-based stadium over the last couple of weeks, is gearing up for a big couple of months in sporting battle.<\/p>\n
Following the Oceania Para Badminton Championships and Australian Para Badminton International, he will line up in the AFL Toyota Open, the flagship national event for footballers with an intellectual disability and wheelchair players.<\/p>\n
He will then fly to the Gold Coast for the inaugural NRL Wheelchair Championships.<\/p>\n
His decision to try his hand at wheelchair rugby could not have come about more randomly.<\/p>\n
\u201cA mate messaged me and asked whether I would like to give NRL a go. Of course, I said yes,\u201d Logan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI contacted someone from the NRL to see how it all worked and got into the Victorian team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in training. I don\u2019t really know the rules, but I\u2019m learning as I go.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a nice trip to Queensland.\u201d<\/p>\n
His new sporting ventures follow another successful season with Essendon in the VWFL.<\/p>\n
While the Bombers were eliminated in the first week of finals by Collingwood, Logan claimed his fifth club best and fairest award.<\/p>\n
He scored a game-high seven goals in the finals loss to the Magpies, and ended the season with 53 goals, including a season-high 11 against Collingwood in round nine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fifth best and fairest was nice, but a premiership would be better,\u201d Logan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we can win the nationals to make up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe won that in 2022, which was great.<\/p>\n
\u201cVictoria has a pretty strong side with the league we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the moment, his sitting volleyball career is on hold, after representing Australia last October at the Paravolley Asia Oceania Club Cup Tour in China.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been playing VWBL (Victorian Wheelchair Basketball League) with the Bendigo Braves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s been taking up a bit of my time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love my sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BENDIGO para athlete Caleb Logan has never been one to shy away from a sporting or any other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-203438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}