Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia’s 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalists and current World No. 12 men’s doubles pair Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong made major mistakes during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games qualification period as they were late to register for the 2020 German Open and the 2020 All England Championship, which offered Olympic badminton ranking points.
The Olympic qualification period for badminton will end on April 30, by missing All England – a Super 1000 tournament was a major blow to Goh/Tan and could potentially cost them a chance to play in the Tokyo Olympic.
After realizing the mistakes, Goh/Tan went seeking help from the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM). However, according to Kenny Goh, the secretary-general of BAM, said that BAM did assist Goh/Tan in appealing to Badminton World Federation (BWF) about the late registration, but the request was rejected by BWF.
“Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong might have overlooked the deadline that led to the problem. After we received their requests, we helped them submit the appeal to BWF immediately,” said Kenny Goh.
“Their appeal was made before the final list of participants was announced on January 31st. We originally thought they would succeed in their appeal. We sent 3 emails to the BWF, but the BWF insisted on its original decision, in which they decided to not accept any late registrations due to their strict deadline policy,” explained Goh.
By missing the two events, Goh/Tan may therefore have to pay the price of ultimately failing to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, because they are currently ranked 12th in the Olympic rankings, behind Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik who currently ranked 10th, but one position above another Malaysian pair, Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi. According to BWF, a country can enter a maximum of two pairs to compete at Olympics if both are ranked in the top eight.
To make matter worse, they were not included in Malaysia’s 2020 Badminton Asia Team Championships team which would provide some good Olympic ranking points as well. However, that’s not end of their Olympic dreams, if they could do well in the upcoming Swiss Open (March 17-22), the Indian Open (March 24-29), the Malaysian Open (March 31 – April 5), Singapore Open (April 7-12) and Wuhan Asian Championships (April 21 to 26), they would still be able to reach the top 8 in the Olympic ranking.
