Kuala Lumpur: The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) has appointed former World No. 1 men’s singles player Wong Choong Hann as its new coaching director, filling the position emptied by Morten Frost who resigned as technical director of BAM on September 2017.
BAM’s president Mohamad Norza Zakaria said Wong will start his work as coaching director on Jan 1, 2019, and one of Wong’s main duties was to help BAM win a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“This appointment is aimed at complementing the current BAM coaching structure where all five coaches will be reporting to Choong Hann,” said Zakaria.
“Of course, one of his main tasks is to win gold in 2020 Tokyo Olympics. But we’ll need to discuss with him first before adding this as part of his Key Performance Indicator (KPI). This is because we also need to look at the conditions and the abilities of our current players.” added Zakaria.
“Besides Choong Hann, we have also interviewed several other candidates including some overseas coaches, but looking at BAM’s existing situation and financial constraints, Choong Hann became our best choice.”
“I believe Choong Hann can work well with all the coaches to achieve our 2020 Tokyo goals,” said Norza.
When contacted by Malaysian media, Wong expressed his gratitude to BAM for hiring him as the new coaching director.
“First, I would like to thank BAM for giving me this opportunity,” said Wong.
“This is a big responsibility, I will work hard to improve the level of our shuttlers and to achieve the goals set up by BAM,” added Wong.
In regards to status of Lee Chong Wei, Wong told reporters that he’ll support whatever Lee decides about his badminton career.
“Ultimately, it is his decision of what he wants to do, and I will 100 percent support it.”
Wong who is currently abroad, will return to Malaysia on Monday to discuss with BAM about setting up short-term and long-term goals.
The 41-year-old Wong was also the first Malaysian player to win a medal in the men’s singles event at the World Championships in addition of helping the Malaysian squad to finish runners-up twice in the Thomas Cup Finals (1998 and 2002).
