SEREMBAN, Oct 6 — The candidate to fill the post of national men’s doubles coach left vacant by Jeremy Gan last week will be finalised next week, says Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) president Datuk Seri Mohamad Norza Zakaria.

He said he hoped men’s doubles chief coach Cheah Soon Kit would quickly find a compatible candidate to fill the post.

"I have given the responsibility to Soon Kit to identify the coach to replace Jeremy. I want Soon Kit to have one who could work with him to realise the targets and objectives that we have set.

"I have met him two or three days ago, and he had given several suggestions and we agreed that the next one will be a local coach and he (Soon Kit) should take into consideration the offers made by our former shuttlers, especially those who had represented the country,” he told reporters after the opening of the 48th Yuen Loong Gold Cup Badminton Tournament by Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, here today.

Mohamad Norza said this in response to whether BAM would accept former national chief coach Yap Kim Hock to work with Soon Kit if there were no other candidates to fill the post.

BAM currently has 17 doubles players and with five new players, the country would have 11 men’s doubles pairs.

In another development, Mohamad Norza said BAM had accepted Khairy’s challenge to return the country to its former badminton glory.

"We will give priority to the challenge, we have not won the Thomas Cup for 25 years which is something we will look forward to and we are also eyeing for a gold in the 2020 Olympics.

"Apart from that, we are yet to have a world champion. So these are the matters we will give our priority to realise and I accept the challenge but we have to be realistic...not all could be met in five years,” he said.

In his speech, Khairy challenged BAM to return to the badminton glory of the country by becoming the top three badminton countries in the world.

"In five years, we want to see Malaysia emerge as the top three badminton giants in the world… within five years, win Thomas Cup, within five years, the Olympics and within five years, badminton world champion... can we?

"This is a challenge... in our lives, we must have a target,” said Khairy. — Bernama