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Rashid worried over lack of succession plan

KUALA LUMPUR: The retirement of China’s long-serving shuttler Bao Chunlai last week has reminded national chief coach Rashid Sidek of the importance of having a proper succession plan.

The 28-year-old Chunlai an­­nounced his retirement from China’s national team during the China Masters in Changzhou last week, ending his decade-long service with the powerful badminton nation.
The lanky shuttler cited constant ankle injuries as the reason for hanging up his racquet.

In fact, he withdrew from the China Masters because of his nagging ankle injury and submitted an official letter of retirement to the Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Sept 20.

China were able to let Chunlai go ahead of the London Olympic Games next year because of their confidence in several youngsters in their camp.

Besides the ever-dependable and four-time world champion Lin Dan, the others currently in the national team are Chen Jin, Chen Long, Du Pengyu and Wang Zhengming.

Chen Long, Du Pengyu and Wang Zhengming are seen as the new batch of players to take over from Lin Dan and Chen Jin when they eventually call it quits.

Rashid said Chunlai’s absence would be missed by the world badminton fraternity but not so much by China’s camp.

“Chunlai may not have won any major titles over the last decade but his towering presence will be missed. He has been overshadowed by Lin Dan all these years,” said Rashid.

“But in the absence of Lin Dan, he had delivered. He has contributed so much in team events like the Thomas Cup Finals and Asian Games.

“His absence, however, has been immediately filled up by other youngsters.
“Their 22-year-old Chen Long is already in the top 10 in the world while they have Pengyu and Zhengming waiting to make their breakthroughs.

“But in Malaysia we have no one to immediately fill the shoes of Lee Chong Wei if he leaves one day. In fact, if he is not around, we do not have any player capable of even clearing the quarter-final stage of an Open tournament.”

The top three back-up players ranked below Chong Wei are Liew Daren, Chan Kwong Beng and Chong Wei Feng.

Daren has shown the most progress but he is still is lagging far behind Chong Wei.
There are also a handful of shuttlers under the charge of Hendrawan but the group, led by Mohd Arif Abdul Latif, still need some time to get their game going.

Rashid hopes that the Bukit Jalil Sports School (BJSS) and the states will be involved actively in unearthing potential talents.

“Our pool of players is not as big as China’s. In China, talent identification programmes are done effectively and many tall and good players come through their system.

“We hope that the small group of players that come through our school and state programmes will be of good quality too,” said Rashid.

Malaysia have produced only one Asian junior men’s singles champion – Zulfadli Zulkifli – this year.
Ironically, Zulfadli did not come through the hugely-funded and heavily-regimented training programme under the umbrella of the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM).

The Kuala Lumpur state player has gained the much-needed international tournament exposure by joining professional club KLRC.



THE STAR

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