Go for broke: Coach Nova Widianto wants Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei to move forward and focus on the Olympics.
PETALING JAYA: When Nova Widianto was a mixed doubles coach for Indonesia, anything less than a gold at the Olympic Games was considered a failure.
And now as a coach with the Malaysian team, he is standing firm with the same goal and wants Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei to continue his Olympic dream in Paris starting on Saturday at the Adidas Arena.
Nova had always raised the bar because lesser objective would also mean trouble for his position at the national training centre in Cipayung, Jakarta during his previous stint back home.
This was the motivation as he and mixed doubles supremo Richard Mainaky ensured Indonesia didn’t return empty-handed from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics as Ahmad Tontowi-Liliyana Natsir secured gold beating Malaysia’s Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying. Nova, who won the Olympics silver with Liliyana at the 2008 Beijing and two world titles with the same player in 2003 and 2005, took charge of the Malaysian mixed doubles squad in January last year.
Nova’s drive and optimism is admirable as he believes world No. 9 Tang Jie-Ee Wei must go with the objective of chasing gold in a difficult pursuit.
“As a player, I consider gold as winning. If I win silver, it’s a defeat for me,” said Nova.
“As a coach with Indonesia, I was involved in helping Tontowi-Liliyana in 2016 Rio de Janeiro and I also want to see Tang Jie-Ee Wei maintain that golden dream in Paris.
“They may have struggled but we have to leave all that behind and start a new chapter in Paris. They must treat this edition like it’s their last Olympics.
“We cannot harp on their previous failures as it will not allow them to move forward and focus on the Olympics. We have to be optimistic and just look forward.”
Under Nova, Tang Jie-Ee Wei had a meteoric rise and outpaced senior pairs Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie (No. 12) and Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing (No. 15) to secure their maiden Olympics ticket.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei reached two finals on the tour this year but lost both, finishing runners-up in the Thailand Masters and Swiss Open.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei should get past Group D that include Feng Yanzhe-Huang Dongping of China, Terry Hee-Jessica Tan of Singapore and Americans Vincent Chiu-Jenny Gai as one of the top two pairs.
Quarter-finals would be a tough round as Tang Jie-Ee Wei might meet any of the top pairs – world No. 1 Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong, South Korea’s world champions Seo Seung-jae-Chae Yu-jung or Yuta Watanabe-Arisa Higashino of Japan – but they will have the single-minded Nova to guide them to make a major breakthrough in their career.
