Thomas Stuer Lauridsen

[henrileconte]

Hello Jonas,

I was wondering if you knew what happened to two danish players I used to see a few years ago: Thomas Stuer Lauridsen and Mette Pedersen. They were quite good, especially Thomas Stuer. Do they ever touch a racket these days? I can't imagine ever not wanting to play at whatever level. It is just to nice to play. Could you imagine that after you quit professional badminton you won't play any more?

Thanks for your time and all the answers you give to your Forum. It's really cool!

Henri

[Cheung]

TSL retired after the 1999 World Championships. I think he reached the q/f stage in that tournament. He had had many injury problems which had some bearing on the decision to retire.

[Loh]

Hello Jonas,

I was wondering if you knew what happened to two danish players I used to see a few years ago: Thomas Stuer Lauridsen and Mette Pedersen. They were quite good, especially Thomas Stuer. Do they ever touch a racket these days? I can't imagine ever not wanting to play at whatever level. It is just to nice to play. Could you imagine that after you quit professional badminton you won't play any more?

Thanks for your time and all the answers you give to your Forum. It's really cool!

Henri

Oh yes, Thomas Stuer-Lauridsen, a tall man, who I considered to possess the most economy of strokes, certainly struck my imagination during his hey days. I thought he would become a big name but unfortunately his career seemed to be relatively short for a Dane, probably as what Cheung said, he was susceptible to constant injuries. However, he was a Bronze medallist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. :(

[ManuelUK]

I played last year against him in a double match for the Europe Cup, where he played with his danish team. There was actually not really much to do, but I think we managed to get 1 or 2 points. It was difficult to see what they were going to play. But it is always nice to play against professional players.
May be he is still playing for his club in Denmark. Or even coaching them...

Regards,

Manuel

[henrileconte]

Thanks for the replies. But I already knew he quited playing strangely enough one year before the olympics, why? When you can still play a quarterfinal at the world championships. He was a tall player, very spectacular, in my opinion. It seems a bit strange that he played last years Europe Cup, since I played there to, and against Kastrup M agleby of Denmark. There is Michael Sogaard over there. Nice to play against, but nog Thomas Stuer. So if anybody knows what he is doing now, and if he occasionally touches a racket, I would be very grateful. Also Mette Pedersen was one of the best European ladies singles players. Almost male like with jumpsmash, backhandclear and smash, very "different" then the running that I am used to with the ladies singles.

Anybody remembers her?

Greetings

[Ben Beckman]

TSL best world champs result was the semi-final and he was a set up and was going on to victory when he broke his ankle. He never really recovered from that and was plagued with injuries. He obviously thought that he could never peak like that again so kind of gave up, what a shame!

[klaphat]

As far as I recall, he quit due to injuries.. the ancle he fractured (or whatever) during a semi-final in the World Championships never quite recovered..

At that time he lived in the U.K. and he continued to live there at least for a couple of years after his retirement..

And today.. he coaches in one of the top Danish clubs and in the Danish International Badminton Academy.. I assume that means that he now lives in Denmark again, but I am actually not so sure about that..