Tuesday September 18, 2012

Kwong Beng stays with Rashid and is out of two tournaments

KUALA LUMPUR: Back-up men’s singles shuttler Chan Kwong Beng’s request to train under Hendrawan in a bid to revive his flagging career has been shot down.

And to add insult to injury, the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) have dropped Kwong Beng from two Grand Prix Gold tournaments in Indonesia and Taiwan for speaking up. The tournament in Indonesia is from Sept 25-30 while the one in Taiwan is from Oct 2-7.

Prior to the BAM’s coaching and training (CNT) committee meeting on Sept 7, Kwong Beng had spoken of his aspiration to come out of the rut, hoping that a change of coach would do the trick.

He had discussed the matter with national singles coach Rashid Sidek and Hendrawan and both had agreed to the switch. However, the proposal was shot down at the CNT.

No go: Not only was Chan Kwong Beng's request for a change of coach turned down, he was also dropped from two Grand Prix Gold tournaments.

Yesterday, Rashid said BAM had retained Kwong Beng despite his drop in form over the last two years. In fact, at last week’s China Masters, he lost 14-21, 14-21 to China’s Chen Yuekun in the second round of the qualifying tournament.

Rashid said that the 24-year-old Kwong Beng, who has yet to win even a Satellite title since 2005, had been given another chance to revive his career.

“He will continue to be under my care with Liew Daren and Chong Wei Feng. They will continue to train with Lee Chong Wei. I will be sending Kwong Beng for the Super Series in Denmark and France,” said Rashid. “I have reminded him that the change should start from within. I hope to see better commitment from him in training from now on.”

While Rashid and Tey Seu Bock are expected to handle the elite team, the heavy responsibility of producing the future stars will fall on Hendrawan under the Project 2016 squad.

Hendrawan will be answerable to a project manager.

Tomorrow, the BAM exco will announce the project managers for the 2016 and 2020 programmes and former international Kwan Yoke Meng and Wong Ah Jit of the National Sports Institute (NSI) are tipped for the jobs.

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