Badminton Asia: Don’t blame Asian nations for postponement of Cup Finals

Upset: World No. 3 Anders Antonsen was among those who questioned the postponement of the Finals.

KUALA LUMPUR: Badminton Asia have strongly denied that Asian countries caused the postponement of the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals scheduled to be held in Aarhus, Denmark, from Oct 3-11.

Their chief operation officer Saw Chit Boon said it was wrong to suggest that Asia’s top badminton nations should be held responsible for the “mess”.

Chit Boon also stressed that the withdrawals of Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand from the Finals should not be judged in the context of “Asians going against the Europeans”.

“I think it is the right and prerogative of every participating country to decide if they want to travel to play or not.

“There are lots of things to be taken into consideration because each country imposes different SOP (standard operating procedures), rules and conditions for their citizens travelling abroad.

“The most important thing here is how we as humans from around the world, play our part to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, ” said Chit Boon.

“So I do not think this is about the Asian countries pulling out just to make life difficult for everybody.

“These claims emerged because Denmark happened to be the hosts. Will the same be said if an Asian country hosted the event?”

In the wake of the Finals being postponed for the third time from the original dates in May, some were clearly upset and took to social media to vent their frustrations.

World No. 3 Anders Antonsen was among them, saying: “Whoever attends, attends. Otherwise, the sport will wither away and die.”

Chit Boon was speaking to the media after witnessing the digital partnership signing ceremony between Badminton Asia and the Sports Innovation and Technology Centre (SITC) of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) at a hotel here yesterday.

UTM will develop an app-based programme for Badminton Asia that is able to record shuttlers’ performance and process the data into a guideline that’s specific to each athlete’s needs.

This guideline can be used by the athlete and their respective coaches to develop a more solid training programme.

Badminton Asia will use the app to help improve the performance of athletes who are part of the Asia Olympic Projects (AOP).

AOP is a programme that supports talented athletes from developing countries to improve their performance and qualify for the Olympics.

The app will also be available for other Member Associations (MAs) that are part of Badminton Asia.

This partnership is expected to be able to leverage the use of sports science in improving badminton players across Asia.