Bangkok: After being cleared from the COVID-19 test, the entire Malaysian badminton team began training on Wednesday ahead of the YONEX Thailand Open which will kick off on January 12.
Malaysian players have praised the organizer for providing good services to the team, including special transportation that brought the players from the hotel to the training facility.
Earlier, Malaysia’s World No. 12 mixed doubles player Shevon Jemie Lai told Malaysian media that after they arrived in Bangkok, they could only undergo light training in a hotel room during the 3-day quarantine before the formal training session which started on Wednesday.
The organizers had to take such an approach to avoid the spread of coronavirus before obtaining the result of the COVID-19 test of each player.
“Once the results of the Covid-19 test have been received, players were divided into two training sessions – morning session at the badminton court and afternoon session for the gym,” said Lai.
“We needed to get ready as early as 6.20 am to board the bus to attend training in the arena,” added Lai.
Although players were permitted to train on the court, they were required to comply with physical distancing during warm-up to avoid the spread of Covid-19.
However, Malaysia’s men’s singles coach Hendrawan has expressed dissatisfaction with the pre-match training arrangements and thought that the training time was not enough on the first day. Hendrawan believed that the next training time allocation would be better.
“There was a delay when arriving at the training venue today. I think this was understandable because, under strict standard operating procedures, only one person could leave the hotel room at a time. I believe that the training schedule will be adjusted in the future because I know there were some complaints about insufficient time allocation. We can only look at the situation and make relative adjustments,” said Hendrawan.
The Malaysian squad is expected to be in Bangkok until the end of the month to participate in the 3 back-to-back tournaments including two Thai Opens and the BWF World Tour Finals.
