Kuala Lumpur: Former technical director of the Malaysian Badminton Association (BAM), Morten Frost Hansen of Denmark who had a bitter fallout with Malaysian badminton superstar Lee Chong Wei, which eventually led to Frost’s resignation from BAM at the end of 2017, wished Lee best of luck on his recovery from nose cancer.
Speaking to reporter during a press conference on Thursday for a mobile app launch, he said: “First of all we have to see how his body is dealing with it as he is coming back for training, then we can take it from there. I wish him best of luck, and hope he can do well.”
“But it’s not easy, especially he is already 36-years-old,” added Frost.
The Danish badminton legend also told reporters that the current Malaysian team needed to work harder in order to achieve good results at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but admitted that anything could happen within 18 months.
“We can see what happened in Rio 2016, where I think we’ve made the best performances and for me anything can happen,” said Frost.
“Now it seems tough (for Malaysian players), but when it comes to the year 2020, players will start to ramp up their performance.”
“I can’t wait to see young players such as Lee Zii Jia to become a main challenger at the 2020 Olympics.”
Frost also expressed his confident with BAM’s new technical director, Wong Choong Hann’s ability to transform the Malaysian team.
“I am confident with his ability, he is not an individual who only work during the office hours, he will work for 24 hours.”
Morten Frost Hansen is a controversial figure in Malaysian badminton.
This can be traced way back to late 90’s when the Dane was the head coach of the national team from 1997-1999.
Then, in 1999, Frost declared ‘war’ with a private badminton club called Nusa Mahsuri Club and he was sacked from BAM. In 2017, the Dane clashed with Lee Chong Wei, and the rest is history.