The following are some pictures from my three months of training with Hong Kong's national badminton team this past summer: 1. Liu Kwok Wa and Albertus Susanto Njoto (HKG's top MD pair) 2. Liu Zhi Heng (HKG's Men's Singles coach, former Chinese player during the 1980s) 3. Agus Haryanto (this guy is jokes!) 4. Chen Yang (training partner for HKG team) and Albertus Susanto Njoto 5. Wang Chen
another cool pic some notable guys in the picture: Zhang Yang, Ng Wei, Johan Hadikusumo Wiratama, Agus Haryanto, and Liu Kwok Wa
more these two pics were taken at a banquet: 1. Zhang Yu Men (former MD World number 1), Wang Chen 2. Ng Wei
Banquet? I wonder in who's honour? Reaper, tell us about the younger guys in the squad who you think are up and coming.
The younger guys on the squad are Chan Yan Kit, Wong Wai Hong, Chu Ming Yih. The other junior guys train with the junior squad, while those three juniors train with the adults. I forgot the name of the younger ones, we just have nicknames for all of them. Chan Yan Kit, I think is a force to watch out for in the future, he's really good and he's got such quick footwork! I saw him in games against Agus, Johan, Ng Wei, and Zhang Yang. He is one the best juniors on the team, during a recent trial to determine players going to the Cheers Singapore tournament. Wong and Chu are also good players, and Wong has had (i think) a good result at an international junior tournament this year. There's another guy who is 18 years old, but I forget his name, he is training for Men's Doubles with Zhang Yumen right now, while the three that I mentionned above are training for Men's Singles with Liu Zhi-heng. HKG's juniors are all ready good and they have great depth in their training.
And yeah, it was really cool to sleep in the same hostel room as Ng Wei, Lam Hoi Tak, Hung Yuk Wong, Chan Yan Kit. We stayed there during our breaks after lunch on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday training.
I think she looks better with short hair. My first experience with her was quite experience. It was my first day training and me and the doubles players (Liu KW, Albertus SN, Lam HT, Tam LT and our coach, Zhang Yumen) were in the strength and condition room and I remember we working on a leg press and Wang Chen was there stretching beside us. She smiled at me and started talking to me in mandarin, assuming I was just another player on the team. I looked around and she was surprised I didn't understand mandarin and then she found out that I was from Canada. After that, she joined us to do agility drills and let's just say, she made those tough harsh drills look easy! During the three months, I got a lot of opportunities to talk to her about many things. She asked me about Canada and how my schooling was like and she told me about her harsh training back home in China. She also told me about players like Mia Audina, Camilla Martin, Susi Susanti, Gong Zhichao, Dai Yun, and Li Yongbo, and her experiences with them. She would always give me little tips here and there on how to improve my technique and was overall extremely nice. This one time, Wang Chen and I were doing a drill on center court with He Yi Ming. She did her footwork drill and then I did my smashing drill, and we did that, I think 10 times. I got that rare opportunity to train on the same court as her, as there was an even number of players besides me, leaving me out. I was so winded and she got me a coke from the canteen. She's always like that, getting drinks for people after a hard drill. Overall, a great person.
Nice experience reaper, thanks for all these photos and reports! Wang Chen seems to be a very nice person according to all the people who have met her...
No, I know someone who knows the national coach so I got to train there free, the only cost was food and little stuff like that.
you must be quite the player to train with the national team, i trained with them for 6 months but with the Jr team. You have to agree the Gym is very cold isnt it?