KUALA LUMPUR: South Korea have lined up a strong cast for the Asian Badminton Championships (ABC) which will form part of their preparations for the Thomas-Uber Cup Finals in Jakarta. The ABC meet will be held at the Kuala Lumpur Badminton Stadium from April 20-25. The team will stay on in Malaysia until their departure for the Thomas-Uber Cup Finals which will be held in Jakarta from May 7-16. After the ABC meet, the team will continue training at the KLBA Stadium and may spar with the Malaysian team once or twice before the Jakarta meet. For the ABC, their men's singles will be represented by Lee Hyun-il, Shon Seung-mo, Park tae-sang, Park Sung-hwan and Jang Young-soo. With world number three Hyun-il and world number seven Seung-mo, almost assured of their places in the Athens Olympic Games, their world No. 17 Tae-sang, who reached the semi-finals of the recent Japan Open, will be out to improve on his ranking at the ABC meet to earn a ticket to Athens. Their men's doubles will not be represented by the recent Japan Open champions Kim Dong-moon-Ha Tae-kwon. Tae-kwon will form a scratch pairing with Jun Jae-sung while Dong-moon will compete only in the mixed doubles with regular partner Ra Kyung-min. They will bank on Lee Dong-soo-Yoo Yong-sung and Yim Bang-eun-Kim Yong-hyun to win honours in the men's doubles event. The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) secretary P. Ganga Rao said that the Koreans had informed BAM that they would stay on after the ABC. “The condition in Indonesia will be similar to ours. The Korean will be here to acclimatise. “They will have their own training sessions. But we may have one or two training sessions with them,'' said Ganga. NST
WOW!! The Korean team will be in KL for 3 whole weeks! Quite smart of them to kill two birds with one stone. Hmm where will they be putting up then? So Kim Dong Moon is giving MD a miss. Strange decision it appears to me. I wonder if Ra Kyung Min is skipping WD too.
Yeah, I would think that Kim and Ra would like to gain more points in MD and WD with their respective partners. Well, Maybe Ra is also participating in WD as well... But they don't need any more points or titles for XD before the Olympics, that's for sure! Please don't injure yourselves!!
YES YES!! Although they are perpetually aching and hurting all over, I believe they are experienced enough and know themselves enough to prevent any major injury. They've been waiting far too long for that elusive piece of gold, especially Ra.
