Jakarta: The worldwide Covid-19 outbreak has forced International Olympic Committee (IOC) to postpone 2020 Tokyo Olympics to July 23 – August 8, 2021. This has had a major impact on the Indonesian badminton players, including the Indonesian men’s doubles team led by the Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) men’s doubles head coach Herry Iman Pierngadi.
Currently, Indonesia has three pairs that ranked in the world’s top ten, with Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo/Marcus Fernaldi Gideon in the World No. 1 ranking, followed by Hendra Setiawan/Mohammad Ahsan in World No. 2, while Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto was ranked sixth.
“Judging from their performance, our two men’s doubles pairs, especially Kevin/Marcus and Hendra/Ahsan are at their peak. They are ranked first and second in the world and this would be very beneficial for the Olympic badminton draws,” said Pierngadi.
“We are going to set up new training program for Hendra/Ahsan who are more senior, as we’ll see an overall reduction in stamina as players’ age increase. The special training program is ready, but we haven’t discussed with them yet because they are still at home for the coronavirus quarantine,” explained Pierngadi.
Herry was not disappointed that the training program he planned leading to the 2020 Olympics had to be adjusted for the 2021 Olympics.
“We were ready to prepare them to reach the peak this July, but I think decision to postpone the Olympic was for the benefit of everyone,” said Pierngadi.
Pierngadi will use the additional one-year period to evaluate the performance of PBSI’s men’s doubles team, especially after Kevin Sukamuljo/Marcus Gideon’s losing streaks to Hiroyuki Endo/Yuta Watanabe of Japan.
“There are many factors that determine who could become a champion. Our team has done a lot of evaluations, the most important thing is to learn from the defeat,” added Pierngadi.
“In addition to looking at opponents’ weaknesses, we also need to find ways to fix our weaknesses. Furthermore, we shouldn’t focus too much on just one opponent, we also need to pay attention to many other opponents,” continued Pierngadi.
