Kuala Lumpur: The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) has been on the lookout for the next Lee Chong Wei for years, but has failed miserably in nurturing the next generation of Malaysian players who could produce promising performances on the world stage.
On Wednesday, BAM’s new Coaching Director Wong Choong Hann told reporters that players should be equipped with the right mindset and skills if they would like to take on the World’s best players.
“Our players need to get the right mix of guidance, must recognize that they can always do better and willing to take risks, otherwise they would be stuck in a bottleneck with limited growth potential,” said Wong.
“Players like this would not be able to become the best and they also would not provide enough motivation to their juniors.”
“I believe Jin Wei has key qualities of becoming a world class player,” Wong commented on the success of the women’s singles player who won her second World Junior title in Markham, Canada on Sunday.
“Of course, I also had a brief discussion with the women’s singles head coach (Tey Seu Bock) in order to design a strong program for Goh to do well in the senior level.”
“We are still in the early stage of discussion, will let you know after we’ve finalized everything.”
“However, I must say that we need to change the players’ mindset and skills before even thinking about winning. We need to provide them with the right weapon before going to war.”
“Imagine if I want to race with Ferrari but I can only drive Kancil. In that case, even though I doubled my practice, I would still lose. I’ll need to drive at least a Porsche in order to race with Ferrari.”
“Furthermore, we’ll look into every player to understand what they need and what kind of practice system that fit them the most,” said Wong.
Wong believed most of the current BAM players lacked the sense of urgency, and they apparently have become too comfortable in their current role.
