Three main objectives of BAM Invitational Championships achieved, says Choong Hann

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 — The three main objectives of holding the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) Invitational Championships have been met, said BAM coaching director Wong Choong Hann.

He said the three objectives of the tournament, which ended yesterday (Aug 16), were to create a testing ground for players to get a feel of an actual tournament; to increase motivation among players by breaking the monotony of just training; and to trigger competitiveness and identify weaknesses among the shuttlers.

The players, he said, were clearly excited and showed excellent fighting spirit in trying to regain their playing rhythm at the tournament, which began with the Division Two competition at the Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM) in Bukit Kiara on August 5.

Choong Hann added that the tournament also showed the progress made by the juniors and praised the youngsters for using the opportunity to gun down the more experienced shuttlers.

“All the players enjoyed the tournament and were really excited. We could see their fighting spirit in each game and how much they valued the experience.

“Maybe they didn’t get the exact 100 per cent feel of a tournament, but at least the coaches used the opportunity to see how the training programme can be further improved. Sometimes, we cannot see certain ‘blindspots’ if we just train,” he said.

Choong Hann said they would conduct a post-mortem in a few days’ time to see if they should continue to hold more similar tournaments while waiting for international tournaments, which had been halted following the global Covid-19 pandemic, to resume.

BAM also have the option of organising a simulation tournament as preparation for the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals, which are scheduled to be held in Denmark from October 3-11.

Commenting further, Choong Hann said the national badminton squad held a slight advantage ahead of the Finals as the players had already started training and competing compared to other nations still struggling to contain the pandemic.

“Some countries have yet to start full preparation with less than six weeks to go (to the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals)… we are neither the best nor the worst in terms of preparations. I just hope it (the Finals) will not be postponed again,” he said. — Bernama