Beijing: The Chinese badminton team which has been training in Chengdu for two months, was off to Europe on Friday to participate in the three back-to-back tournaments – German Open (March 8 – March 13), All England (March 16 – March 20), and Swiss Open (March 22 to March 27).
The difference was, this time, the Chinese badminton team would not fly back to China after Europe, instead, they would go to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to prepare for all upcoming tournaments before returning to China to participate in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games (September 10 – September 25).
After the Tokyo Olympics last August, the Chinese national squad had to be self-quarantined for 21 days and then rushed to Xi An to participate in the China National Games. After that, the team went to Finland for the Sudirman Cup and then to Denmark to compete at the 2020 Thomas & Uber Cup Finals. The Chinese shuttlers were quarantined for another 21 days after returning to China. Upon the completion of the 2021 World Championships in Huelva, Spain, in December last year, the Chinese shuttlers returned to China to undergo their third quarantine in half a year.
Therefore, the Chinese Badminton Association (CBA) has decided to set up an overseas training location in Chiang Mai, Thailand. After the three European tournaments in March, the whole Chinese team will travel to Thailand to prepare for the Korea Open (April 5 – April 10), and then get ready for the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals that will be held in Bangkok, from May 8 to May 15, 2022. After that, there will also be other tournaments such as the Thailand Open from May 17 to May 22. In June, there will be Indonesia Masters (June 7 to June 12), Indonesia Open (June 14 to June 19), and Malaysia Open (June 28 to July 3), and in July there are Malaysia Masters (July 5 to July 10), Singapore Open (July 12 – July 17) and other events. Lastly, this year’s Badminton World Championships will be held in Tokyo from August 21 to August 28.
Zhang Jun, chairman of the Chinese Badminton Association, said, “This year is the first year of the 2024 Paris Olympic cycle, and it is also the year when we start evaluating potential singles and doubles players. Players must perform and prove themselves through a whole year of competitions and improve their world rankings.”
At present, China’s men’s singles and men’s doubles have the biggest problems compared to the other three categories.
“I hope that by the end of this year, we will have at least 3 to 4 singles players or pairs ranked top 30 in each of the five categories. This way, we will have more players to compete for the 2024 Paris Olympics when the Olympic qualification period begins on May 1, 2023,” added Zhang Jun.
Due to the plan of staying in Thailand until August, Chinese shuttlers were having problems with their belongings since they couldn’t bring too much luggage with them to Europe.
Fortunately, the Chinese team has made a plan to ship some of those belongings directly to Thailand to ensure that the shuttlers would have the items they need when training overseas for half a year.
