I think it's nonsense to suggest British players don't have the motivation and determination to succeed at the highest level. I think they just don't have the talent.

If I had to pick one key factor that's stopping us succeed, it's the lack of athletic young kids who take up badminton. There are too few opportunities for kids to play badminton at all until they reach secondary school (by which time it's getting a bit late), and even then the majority of the sporty kids are always going to be more likely to play football, rugby, tennis, athletics, etc rather than badminton. And really, when they're seeing football players earning obscene amounts of money and dating page-3 girls, can you really blame them? It also doesn't help that badminton gets virtually no media exposure – I'm absolutely appalled that the world championships are taking place in London right now, and yet there's no coverage whatsoever on free-to-air tv channels.

Actually, I don't neccessarily think it's that bad a thing – as long as people are enjoying playing and watching sports, that's the main thing. As much as I love badminton, I don't believe it's any more worthy than any other sports (except obviously pseudo-sports like snooker, golf, darts, etc). I'm not particularly bothered that England aren't considered one of the great badminton playing nations.

The other thing is that we've always spread ourselves thin across a lot of sports, so it's almost inevitable. Probably only Australia and Canada can claim to be as successful in as many different sports (not including countries like the USA / Russia, whose population is much larger). In terms of sports, we're normally in the same sort of league as France, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc – and in badminton we're still beating those countries, so we're doing okay (Yes, Denmark are beating us, but then what other sports are they any good at?).

Overall, the coverage on badmintonworldtv is BBC-quality:
superb. But as somebody on this forum stated, what a enormous shame this
is a WORLD championchip, and gets no public TV attention whatsoever.
Only pay tv and internet. Cold comfort, last year in France, no public TV coverage either. So this
internet initiative of the BWF was THE thing I was waiting for.

This
year, the Belgian Open will be shown on public TV, as far as I know for
the very first time in history. There was a time sports on Belgian tele was actually footbal and cycling, period. Belgian Judo was gone, only tennis when Belgian women were competing, and that was it. So, this change cannot have enough publicity.

All of the Belgian players are already gone home on these WC's. This might not look very promissing, BUT (IMHO), I think they are the ones that change things, because I don't think we ever had this much contenders in a WC before (correct me if I'm wrong). In womens tennis, we have a few topplayers for about a decade all together now. Before we had none. This didn't change on a blue monday, it took years of practice, but I guess most of all it took people who believed in this project and wanted to work on it. I can only hope Belgian Badminton is going the same way. The youth here in Belgium is certainly well looked after when it comes to possibilities and court time.

I can understand the frustration of the British badminton fans, since the UK was once about on more or less the same level as Denmark. It doesn't take brilliance to see the UK had a drawback. But don't give up. The Netherlands had silver on the Olympics in WS, after that a few years nothing, but now they are progressing bit by bit since Xu Huaiwen is now coaching them (at least that's the way I see it). As long as there is progress (and the change is possitive), don't give up.

The prize money: if you don't like the sport, you won't make it to a professional player either (this I'm sure). When you're a pro, your sport is your income. Whether you're a footballer or a badminton player, you'll have to pay your sandwishes from what comes in (prize money and sponsorship). If this is your living, money will always be an issue (this doesn't necessarily needs to sound dirty, we're not talking massive bank-bonusses or football-like cheques). I can only have deeply respect for those in non-classic badminton countries who choose for none-massive payed sports, and still (against all odds) go for a pro carreer. Since they know in advance it won't be easy.

Something tells me this will be a discussion with many posts

All the best, ED

Hello everyone,

A very interesting subject it is indeed. For me what makes a good player become a world-class player is :

– the motivation. Noone can succeed if he doesn't want to work hard for it. Nguyen Tien Minh, the Vietnamese player, is one example. I was interested by his story and how he managed to get where he is now. Coming from a nation with no strong Badminton culture, he may not be succesful compared to the great players like Taufik, Peter, Dan or Chong Wei but he has reached quarterfinals of the BWF World championships this year which is a great achievement as a VN player.

Ok, it's not very impressive but how many players can do like him ? 200 $ a month was what he got as an VN athlete and didn't even have proper facilities for training like in China until recently.–> he saw his income increasing a little bit more thanks to his endorsement from Victor but still, that can not be compared to other top players.

Moreover, having good technic at some point can't be enough if you're facing an opponent with the same level of game, that means you have to stay in good shape all the time and then, working out a lot. You can see the difference between Taufik Hidayat and Peter Gade. TH used to defeat PG but now, he lost at early stage in the tournaments compared to PG who maintains his fitness. Age is of course a disavantage but how do you explain the fact that TH is falling when PG still reached semifinals –> Motivation.

One more thing about motivation, it also includes “fighting spirit”. Success relies on that as well. I saw the match between Kashyap and Nguyen Tien Minh. NTM managed to save 5 matchs points and add two more points to win the decider. During that match, I would think Kashyap would win maybe not as easily as he would like but an insured victory. How on earth could he lose 5 match points ?!?!

NTM proved how much he is fighting on a court even though he is not on the same level as the top seed. A well deserved victory after such a display. I really appreciated to watch that game.

– the coach. He knows how the player has to train in order to improve his game and can give good advices during games. He can motivate the player as well. The match between Peter Gade against Nguyen Tien Minh will be my example this time. NTM took the first game but couldn't maintain his game until the end. Peter Gade won thanks to his big experience and his two coaches behind him who were talking to him all the time while NTM lost due to that lack. Whatever the reason is, NTM can't think everything by himself. A player has to stay focused all the time and the coach is the biggest support he may have on a court.

I was shocked to see the so-called “coach” of Tien Minh who is a woman with no experience. NTM would have deserved the win against PG but couldn't make it in the end.

EDIT : To continue with the coach. The coach has his role during the game on a court but has also his work to do off court. Studying the opponents game to prepare for the encounter. Wang Yihan seems to regain her place as China top women single player thanks to that but she did it mostly by herself, a good initiative from her.

(Paul, from what I've read here, is working a lot off court as well with his players during the coaching weekend). 

Jonathan.