GordonSim
17th May 2004, 11:21
Well China beat Denmark in the Thomas Cup Final. It was much closer than many had expected and could have gone either way until the final doubles.
All the Danes are closer to 30 years of age compared to a Chinese team on average almost 8 years younger.
Steen Pedersen the Danish manager commented that perhaps Denmark need to look at bringing younger players on more quickly to a World Class standard in order to compete more effectively.
In the West we will never take children at 8 years of age and have them training virtually full-time for badminton as they do in China. This is to the massive detriment of their overall development as individuals...3 of the Danish team (Rasmussen,Boesen and Kaldau) are trainee doctors a fact that I know stuns the Chinese as their players with very odd exceptions have no alternatives when they are retired from badminton.
This cuts to the core of a lot of delusional thinking that is presently going on relative to the various World start and development programmes.
If Denmark feel they can't compete with all the inherent strength within their system where does it leave the home nations?
The biggest fault that I see is simply that too much funding is spent on developing lot's of early maturing youngsters in a system that over competes them and trains them in way that actually is too much for fun play and not enough to win medals in major competition.
In the thrust for junior medals England may be missing the point in a big way.
Big early maturing youngsters will often do very well as there can be a 3-4 year spread in biological age and the resultant hand wringing when results don't come through at senior level is only to be expected.
The skill in talent development is taking the little Beckhams of this world ( you are too small for football son!)and the talented big lads and lasses together and accepting different results but persisting with the widest possible pool into adulthood. I see an embryonic form of this in Scotlands lottery squads where rankings and potential have been separated and youngsters are receiving sport specific training from 11 years of age.
The UK should be in a position to provide structures that can work in harmony with our education systems and built around the concept of long term athlete development. I say UK specifically as we need a unitary approach and a joint strategy to address concerns already mooted in the government funding side of things that there is far too much fragmentation in UK sport.
We could compete with Asia if we engaged in complimentary badminton specific training from 10 years of age built around and in partnership with education authorities.
It is only when we are training our youngsters during and after the school day between 10-16 years that we will be able to achieve real results. I am not talking about badminton specific schools but coaches and badminton authorities working in partnership with education bodies.
At age 16 you can bring your talent pool together in a boarding environment (as they do in Sweden) put them on a 3 year (as opposed to 2 year) A level/Higher course and train the life out of them according to specific individual training plans.
If we did this China and Indonesia would be there for the taking millions of people or not, and Denmark would at least get some form of competition in Europe!
All the Danes are closer to 30 years of age compared to a Chinese team on average almost 8 years younger.
Steen Pedersen the Danish manager commented that perhaps Denmark need to look at bringing younger players on more quickly to a World Class standard in order to compete more effectively.
In the West we will never take children at 8 years of age and have them training virtually full-time for badminton as they do in China. This is to the massive detriment of their overall development as individuals...3 of the Danish team (Rasmussen,Boesen and Kaldau) are trainee doctors a fact that I know stuns the Chinese as their players with very odd exceptions have no alternatives when they are retired from badminton.
This cuts to the core of a lot of delusional thinking that is presently going on relative to the various World start and development programmes.
If Denmark feel they can't compete with all the inherent strength within their system where does it leave the home nations?
The biggest fault that I see is simply that too much funding is spent on developing lot's of early maturing youngsters in a system that over competes them and trains them in way that actually is too much for fun play and not enough to win medals in major competition.
In the thrust for junior medals England may be missing the point in a big way.
Big early maturing youngsters will often do very well as there can be a 3-4 year spread in biological age and the resultant hand wringing when results don't come through at senior level is only to be expected.
The skill in talent development is taking the little Beckhams of this world ( you are too small for football son!)and the talented big lads and lasses together and accepting different results but persisting with the widest possible pool into adulthood. I see an embryonic form of this in Scotlands lottery squads where rankings and potential have been separated and youngsters are receiving sport specific training from 11 years of age.
The UK should be in a position to provide structures that can work in harmony with our education systems and built around the concept of long term athlete development. I say UK specifically as we need a unitary approach and a joint strategy to address concerns already mooted in the government funding side of things that there is far too much fragmentation in UK sport.
We could compete with Asia if we engaged in complimentary badminton specific training from 10 years of age built around and in partnership with education authorities.
It is only when we are training our youngsters during and after the school day between 10-16 years that we will be able to achieve real results. I am not talking about badminton specific schools but coaches and badminton authorities working in partnership with education bodies.
At age 16 you can bring your talent pool together in a boarding environment (as they do in Sweden) put them on a 3 year (as opposed to 2 year) A level/Higher course and train the life out of them according to specific individual training plans.
If we did this China and Indonesia would be there for the taking millions of people or not, and Denmark would at least get some form of competition in Europe!