Kuala Lumpur: The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) has re-arranged its coaching structure with Wong Choong Hann no longer the Director of Coaching for BAM, instead, he and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics men’s doubles gold medal winner, Rexy Mainaky, will share responsibilities to strengthen the singles and doubles departments respectively.
BAM secretary-general, Kenny Goh told Malaysian media that going forward, the singles division would be run by Wong Choong Hann as the Singles Coaching Director, while Rexy Mainaky would lead the doubles department as the Doubles Coaching Director. Their main target would be to win the 2022 Thomas Cup that will be held in Bangkok.
“We evaluated our strengths and weaknesses, and also look at the opportunities as well,” said Goh.
“From there, we decided to overcome all these weaknesses and move forward. That’s why we came up with this structure. We used to have many levels in our coaching structure, such as the head coach has to report to the director of coaching,” added Goh.
“We have narrowed it down where right now we only have two divisions, singles, and doubles. The doubles division will be led by Rexy while Choong Hann manages the singles department,” continued Goh.
“So Rexy and Choong Hann will plan and decide who will coach which players and make conclusions about the coaches and the players.”
“We are supposed to make a yearly review of our player at the end of the year. But since Rexy just joined us, we will give him another month to assess the coaches and players,” said Goh at the press conference.
Previously, Wong held the position of BAM’s Director of Coaching, while Rexy was his assistant.
Kenny said the decision was reached in a Coaching and Training (C&T) Committee Meeting held virtually after hearing reports from the head coach on the players’ performance over the past three months in Europe and Bali, Indonesia.