ABM vows to strengthen training for LA28 Olympics

PARIS - The national shuttlers came to the 2024 Paris Olympics hoping to land the country’s first-ever gold medal; instead, they will return home with two bronze medals.

Although this is an improvement compared to the single bronze that the men’s doubles pair of Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik bagged at Tokyo 2020, it still falls short of the ‘golden’ mission.

The two bronze medals at Paris 2024 came courtesy of Aaron-Wooi Yik and men’s singles professional shuttler Lee Zii Jia.

Aaron-Wooi Yik and Zii Jia had to bounce back from first-game defeats to overcome Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark and Lakshya Sen of India respectively in the bronze medal playoffs.

Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah, who stunned some big names en route to becoming the first women’s doubles pair to reach the Olympic semi-finals, ended up in fourth spot after losing to Japan’s Nami Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida in the bronze medal playoff, while women’s singles shuttler Goh Jin Wei crashed out in the group stage.

Kudos also to the mixed doubles pair of Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei, who performed superbly in the group stage by upsetting second seeds Feng Yan Zhe-Huang Dong Ping of China before succumbing to South Koreans Kim Won Ho-Jeong Na Eun in the quarter-finals.

With the wait for badminton's gold medal extended for at least another four years until the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics (LA28), Akademi Badminton Malaysia (ABM) coaching director Rexy Mainaky said all parties must start ‘sacrificing’ time and energy from now, especially the players.

He stressed that all stakeholders need to accomplish greater feats, which were previously deemed impossible, if they really want to grasp the gold medal at LA28.

Rexy said that for Paris 2024, all preparations had been made through additional support from the Road to Gold (RTG) programme, established last year, and he does not consider returning home with two bronze medals as a failed mission.

"To move forward, we must start from now. Don’t wait until 2027 then start to discuss what we want to achieve... but from now we need to know what we want to do. Learn from what we have done now, discard the bad and improve on the weaknesses. Perhaps further intensify training sessions and have longer training camps.

"For example, like China, they had a full Olympic simulation exercise, with players staying in a hotel and taking buses to play in major stadiums... just like at a real Games.

"The players themselves must make sacrifices from now. Don’t wait until two or three months before the Olympics to start serious preparations. What we are doing is very good, just need to compile and improve on any shortcomings and we hope the RTG will be extended,” he said.

Rexy said that the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan would be the next benchmark for the coaching panel to identify players who can be medal contenders at LA28.

He is confident that Aaron-Wooi Yik can compete at LA28 if they stay injury-free, as well as Pearly-Thinaah and Tan Jie-Ee Wei, who are still young, to continue to challenge for the medals at the next Olympics.

Rexy said men’s singles shuttlers like Ng Tze Yong, Leong Jun Hao and Justin Hoh and men’s doubles pairs like Choong Hon Jian-Muhammad Haikal Nazri, Junaidi Arif-Yap Roy King, Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Mohd Rumsani and Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun are among those seen as having the potential to compete at LA28.

He said the ABM is also more open to facilitating professional players to train at the academy if they have the potential to compete at the Olympics, although it would require an agreement from both sides regarding certain matters that need to be adhered to. - BERNAMA