PETALING JAYA: Datuk Rashid Sidek applauds China’s move to appoint world and Olympic men’s singles champion Chen Long as their junior badminton coach.
Rashid believes that the decision is expected to see more young stars emerge from the badminton giants in future.
“It’s the right and best choice. You need a big star to handle the juniors,” said Rashid.
The 35-year-old Chen Long, who broke Lee Chong Wei’s heart at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games men’s singles final, had retired in 2021 but his love for the game did not diminish.
Rashid hopes China’s move will be emulated by Malaysia.
“We need big names, who are good in the game, to handle our junior players. I think it will not help if we hire an unknown player, who hardly had made a name in the badminton scene as coaches,” said Rashid.
In recent times, Malaysia had hired Datuk Misbun Sidek as the national junior coaching director but he left after his contract was ended prematurely. Indonesian Jeffer Rosobin was brought in and he did a great job but he too has been moved up to help out the senior singles department under head coach Kenneth Jonassen.
Rashid says by involving Chen Long at the lower level, which usually does not get the spotlight as the senior team, China were serious in investing on the team for future.
Currently, China too are struggling to produce consistent players like Chen Long and Lin Dan.
The best player in the team right now is Shi Yuqi but the others like Li Shifeng, Lu Guangzu and Weng Hongyang are still not stable as their seniors were.
“Junior players will look up to Chen Long. They will be inspired by his achievements. And with a skilful player like Chen Long handling the team, expect the quality of the players to be better,” said Rashid.
“China are already tough team to beat with the current players. Imagine with more quality players coming through the supply chain from the junior squad.”
China won only two titles in the World Junior Championships through Hu Zhean (boys’ singles) and Lin Xiangyi-Liu Yuanyuan (mixed doubles). In fact, not many of their world junior champions from the last few editions have made it big in the senior ranks.
With the presence of Chen Long, all that could change soon.
