Jakarta: Two Indonesian men’s singles players who have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics – Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and Jonatan Christie, were working to improve their consistency ahead of the biggest quadrennial multi-sport event in the world which will be held in Tokyo from July 23 to August 8.
The men’s singles head coach of the Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) – Hendry Saputra revealed that the Indonesian badminton players had accelerated their preparations to compete in Tokyo since two months ago.
“We have tried to focus on strengthening our physical fitness, stamina, power, strength, and speed for the last two months. We will continue to train until approximately two weeks before our departure,” said Saputra at the PBSI national team training center.
“So far the training results have been pretty good and are on target with our expectations. We want to make sure our shuttlers could maintain the same level of condition when we arrive in Tokyo,” continued Saputra.
Saputra said his current focus is to focus on improving the techniques and mental strength.
“Actually, there are not many shortcomings. They have been at their current level for a long time despite lack of tournaments. We are working on the consistency, and applying the right playing style in the matches,” explained Saputra.
“Right now, we need to improve our players’ mental strength because they haven’t competed for a long time. PBSI is going to hold a simulation tournament so that we can evaluate and know where their mental state is,” added Saputra.
The 57-year-old coach admitted not able to compete for a long time definitely has impacted his players.
“There were negative consequences to our players after the cancellation of the Malaysia Open and Singapore Open. Our players’ physical and mental conditions were ready for those tournaments, unfortunately, the tournaments got canceled. The Olympics are two months from now, we must ready to get used to any situation to make sure we maximized our conditions in Tokyo,” said Saputra.
PBSI has prepared a simulation tournament as a warm-up event for Indonesian shuttlers who will compete at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on June 18-19 at the PBSI National Training Center.
