Kuala Lumpur: Called the sad state of the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), when Tan Boon Heong has decided BAM was an unworthy place for him to stick around and has turned in his resignation letter.
Tan Boon Heong became the latest high-profile Malaysian badminton to call it quits after Ng Hui Ern, Ng Hui Lin, Ong Jian Guo, Yang Li Lian, two top Malaysian men’s doubles players – Hoon Thien How and Lim Khim Wah all got fed up and have walked out on BAM.
Tan Boon Heong was previously paired with Hoon Thien How, with whom he won the World Junior Championships in 2004 and a silver medal at the 2006 Asian Badminton Championships. When Rexy Mainaky (Malaysian’s doubles coach in 2006) decided to partner him with Koo Kien Keat at the 2006 Doha XV Asian Games, the pair went on to become the Asian Games champion, winning the gold medal in their maiden outing by defeating the then Chinese world champions, Cai Yun-Fu Haifeng, in the quarterfinals, Indonesia’s Markis Kido-Hendra Setiawan in the semifinals, and finally Luluk Hadiyanto-Alvent Yulianto Chandra, also from Indonesia, in the finals.
They also became the first qualifiers to win the Malaysian Open title in 2007.
At the 2009 Japan Super Series, Tan Boon Heong set the world record for badminton smashes at 421 km/h. This was done under lab conditions and recorded by Yonex representatives, and not in an official match.
However, after Koo Kien-Keat’s resignation from BAM on Feb 2014, Tan Boon Heong was paired up with Hoon Thien How and Ow Yao Han but couldn’t resurrect his career at the level he was used to when he was partnering with Koo Kien Keat. And it is very likely that Tan will renunite with Koo again.
Hopefully after Morten Frost began working as the technical director of BAM on Monday, he could help calm things down a little bit. If someone else drops a ‘nuclear bomb’, that would have ‘devastating’ impact on Malaysian badminton or even on the world of badminton.
