Badminton will never be the same anymore

5 oktober 2020 - Ho Chi Minh-stad, Vietnam

The last couple of months more and more sport specialists are talking about how sport will change forever due to the C-19 crisis. Also NOC*NSF talks about the fact that many clubs will not make it true the crisis and it will take many years before (if ever) the situation will become normal again. Club life in Europe is for 99% based on group training, this is logical and normal for team sports and it has become also traditional for sports that are a lot more individueel. The reason for this is also very simple, it is cost efficient to do the same training with a whole group, sports like Tennis and Golf are somewhat outsiders and have an alot more personal approach to training.  There is more money in this sport and also the players usually have more to spend than what you see in other sports. In our sport we face the same problems, group training is the standard and personal training the exception, there is not even a difference in group training between girls and boys and their games don’t look like each other at all. Many different skills are needed between them but you don’t see this back in the training.

It is very clear to me that our sport will have a big downfall in Europe, already now we have lost many badminton players to other sports especially the sport that can be done outdoors. The risk of infection is a lot bigger indoors, and sports halls with good air circulation are not good for Badminton making our sport extra vulnerable for the loss of members. In Asia we don’t have the same problems, hall for indoor sports have naturally already good ventilation due to the heath and because badminton is one if not the biggest sport in Asia the effect of ventilation has been taken very seriously so it doesn't have a negative impact on the game. 

If Europe still wants to compete with Asia in a serious way they will have to start thinking on a whole different level, we need to become technical specialists in every thinkable aspect of the game. At this moment only Denmark has the basis to be able to make this transition, beary in mind that they have not yet done so, but they have the knowhow to implement this way of training very fast without having to invest too much in new coach education. All other countries in Europe are not ready to even start working on a new concept for the very simple reason that they don’t have the resources to do so.  Coach education is still based on group training and not very sophisticated training.

Badminton players have to get prepared not to do their training in clubs anymore.but to work in very small groups of 2 or 4 players and one coach. Training has to be a lot more detailed and personal to make the training more efficient, spending less hours in the hall but get better results. There is a lot of space for improvement but it takes willingness from big sports organisations to think out of the box when talking about the way to educate the coaches. The longer it takes before things like this start to happen the more people we will lose to other sports where they have space for personal development.