Kunshan: Before Denmark created history by winning the Thomas Cup Finals for the first time on Sunday, no one would even care whom the Denmark shuttlers have trained with before lifting the prestigious team event.
After winning their maiden Thomas Cup title, everything changed. The social media have been circulating pictures seemingly showing several key Denmark players including Jan O Jorgensen, Kim Astrup, Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, and Hans-Kristian Vittinghus posed for pictures together with Lee Chong Wei’s former coach Misbun Sidek and Malaysia’s former top men’s doubles player Jalani Sidek.
When asked by Malaysian media, Jalani has confirmed that Danish players have often came to Nusa Mahsuri Badminton Club to train with Misbun Sidek. Those pictures that have gone viral were taken before the Malaysian Open that was held from April 5 to April 10 this year.
“Those players trained with Misbun two weeks before the Malaysian Open, and their target was to win the Thomas Cup and prepare for the Olympics,” said Jalani.
“We had trained under Han Jian, Chen Changjie and Yang Yang in 1992 that led us to our Thomas Cup victory. It’s common to train under different coaches prior to competition,” said Jalani.
“Their main objective was to find out how Lee Chong Wei is able to maintain his competitive edge for such a long time. Those Danish players are attached to clubs and their expenses are paid by the clubs. Therefore, they are free to choose where they wanted to train,” said Jalani.
Jan Jorgensen who played the second men’s singles, Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the second men’s doubles and Hans-Kristian Vittinghus who won the deciding third men’s singles match helped Denmark became the first European country to lift the Thomas Cup on Sunday, winning the final 3-2 against Indonesia.
