Yes, Mulyo Handoyo has gone back to Indonesia to coach Taufik and to help his country retain the Thomas Cup. But Singapore has acted fast and got what I think is a better replacement for the men's singles national coach.

The SBA has offered Huang Yichong, 65, a two-year contract pending the approval of his employment pass. Apparently, Huang was the coach of the Chinese national men's singles team as well as head coach of the Chinese youth team between 1992 and 1998.

And guess who are the great names that he has a hand in developing? None other than Yang Yang, Zhao Jianhua, Sun Jun, Liu Yong and Dong Jiong. Now, who would not want to be coached by such a great master? The beneficiaries will of course be Ronald Susilo, Kendrick Lee, Gerald Ho and other young aspirants.

The women's national team has not been neglected as well.

Chen Yuping, 50, has been engaged for two years to coach our girls. She came with an impressive resume, having herself represented China from 1972 to 1975 before switching to coaching.

Chen first coached at the Jiangsu Sports School where she trained youth players who went on to become Olympic and world champions. Who are they? They are familiar names as the male stars:

Ge Fei, Gu Jun, Dai Yun and Qian Hong!

I can tell you, our young badminton national players never had it so good! No wonder the SBA cannot tolerate the unfit professionals because they probably would not be able to take the punishing training by these great coaches!

Thats good news for Spore Badminton

Wow! But seriously, I wonder how they will cope. After all, Chinese coaches training techniques may have a different style to Indonesian training...

Well at least they have the best of both countries. :)

Originally posted by Cheung
Wow! But seriously, I wonder how they will cope. After all, Chinese coaches training techniques may have a different style to Indonesian training...

I think our men players are not altogether unfamiliar with the Chinese methods as the national team was first coached by the Chinese. The Indon coaches came in later. As a matter of fact, SBA's current Technical Director, Zheng Qingjin, now a S'pore citizen was one of China's national coaches from 1981 to 1984 and first joined the SBA as national coach in 1991 before becoming its Director of Coaching in 1996.

Zheng's proteges were members of China's 1976 unsuccessful Thomas Cup team and included Zhang Qingwu (who was the previous women's team coach now taken over by Chen Yuping), Zhou Jincan and Zhang Qiang. Zheng himself took over the training of the national men's team during the recent short period when Mulyo left for Indonesia.

Also Zhao Jianhua was the men's coach for a short time. I would say our players have been associated with the Chinese coaches for much longer periods than their Indonesian counterparts.

Originally posted by Loh
I think our men players are not altogether unfamiliar with the Chinese methods as the national team was first coached by the Chinese. The Indon coaches came in later. As a matter of fact, SBA's current Technical Director, Zheng Qingjin, now a S'pore citizen was one of China's national coaches from 1981 to 1984 and first joined the SBA as national coach in 1991 before becoming its Director of Coaching in 1996.

Zheng's proteges were members of China's 1976 unsuccessful Thomas Cup team and included Zhang Qingwu (who was the previous women's team coach now taken over by Chen Yuping), Zhou Jincan and Zhang Qiang. Zheng himself took over the training of the national men's team during the recent short period when Mulyo left for Indonesia.

Also Zhao Jianhua was the men's coach for a short time. I would say our players have been associated with the Chinese coaches for much longer periods than their Indonesian counterparts.

Well spoken :) by a true Sporean.