Although I am sure this has been discussed before, I am not satisfied with the comments left by some of the non-CDN BC forum members. I believe this thread will shed some light on my countries badminton "potential". Being a curious and patriotic Canadian, I decided to run in some of Canada's top players into BC's search option. The results upset me. Half of the results were comparing the top Candian men's singles players, againest top women of an international level. After checking the thread front and back, I noticed the general opinion was the same with few exceptions. Many people seem to think that just because a player is from Canada, he doesn't have the talents that many other players on an international level share. For instance, many people believed that Xie could beat Bobby Milroy or Andrew Debeka in a singles competition. This is hypethetical, however not well founded. If you were to put a more recognizable name into the Canadian's slot you would surely recieve a "NO WAY". But the thing is, againest a more recognizable name, the canadians can usually do very well. Example, Bobby Milroy Vs. Chen Hong (If Xie were to play Chen, who do you think would win?), the scores were as follows, 15-9, 15-13 for Chen Hong. Close game, no doubt. Remeber, this is not an attempt to start a battle of the sexes, I am merely stating what I have observed within the forums, nothing more, nothing less. Let's get realistic though, Canadian badminton is based on grassroots programs. We generally don't have expensive training, infact where I live the only training camp offered, is one week in the summer to fundraise for Andrew Debeka and Stephan Wojikciwiz (this is my best attempt at spelling his last name ) and the cost is a mere $175. Because of the lack of funds, many professional players in Canada are required to run these training camps as a means of support because they are only issued small sums of money by the Canadian goverment for competition. Another factor on the Canadian badminton strain is the lack of popularity of badminton. Come on folks, how many times have you seen the local Pub tune into a badminton match instead of the hockey game. I have 15 hockey channels, and 5 other sports networks, yet I have never seen a broadcasted game of badminton. I have even contacted my local Satellite provider into obtaining an asian sports network, the response has gone unanswered for months. I don't mean to drag on with our faults in many aspects of sport, but they are important factors that must be stressed to the outside world in comparison factors. The last downfall is simply our lack of population. HOWEVER with all of these throwbacks, Canada still has 2 players within the top 30 in the world rankings. Fairly impressive for a bunch of poor hicks who grew up playing badminton in gym class eh? Thats my 2 cents, I'd love to hear yours.
In Calgary we have a pretty good training program. We get to train with Ardy Wiranata 7 times a week with people like W. Milroy (Bobby's brother) and K. Foley. Our training group consists of around 16 people. Last time I checked Bobby was ranked top 20 in the world and Helen Nicole and Charmaine Reid were ranked to 20 world doubles. While badminton is not nearly as competitive here as it is in Europe or Asia, we are getting better. If we could afford more coaches and if there was more money in badminton we would see better results at a faster pace. Bottom line we dont have the badminton and sports institutions to compete with China, USA... any country with a strong sports program we lose to. Sports performance pretty much comes down to talent pool and financial support.
There is no doubting the factors you mention. Population is not really as relevant as is the percentage of the population who have access to training and facilities. That is partly a function of money and partly of the importance of badminton relative to the overall sports scene. That is why Malaysia with 24 million or Denmark with 5 million people can still be competitive with giant countries like China and Indonesia. As for your last point, I've heard from more than one source that Canada's top-notch players did NOT grow up playing badminton in gym class. They are the ones who had access to a club from an early age and were initiated into a stream of competitive players and coaches completely exclusive of the gym classes and even of the competitive but listless high school and university team system. Is it impressive? Well, until recently, I noticed that Canadian players seemed to get unfairly high rankings from playing lots of small tournaments in the Western Hemisphere but that they'd lose to unknown Asians every time they were unlucky enough to meet them upon crossing an ocean. I've seen more exceptions to that rule lately but the rule still works in general. Look at world #20 Bobby Milroy losing to #62 Chan Yan Kit twice, #74 Kaveh Mehrabi, #78 Fischer Nielsen, #80 Kawaguchi Keishi...the list goes on. But it's been taking some higher-ranked players to beat him this year like Chen hong, Bao Chunlai, Niels Christian Kaldau, Lee hyun-il and Kuan Beng-hong. Reid/Nichol at #20 took out Ooi/Mooi (#24 of Malaysia) at the Singapore Open. They were ranked higher but this is exactly the type of match I'd never seen Canadian teams win. It's more common to see things like the Taiwan Open this week where a local ranked #277 will take out a Canadian #22. This isn't just true of Canadian pros but it is an example of the lack of reliability of the IBF rankings. It's slowly changing and that is encouraging. I like hearing the news from Eurasian about the great things going on in Calgary.
that was me debating in that thread about canadian MS vs top china's WS. I did it to hightlight canadian MS players and they aren't as bad as some people think especially against top WS of all people. Although we now have ardy here passing on his talents, there are still deficiencies holding back canadian (cdn) players becoming top 10. 1. ardy is just one person, bringing forward his brand and style of knowlege. Ardy by my estimate is 75% defensive and 25% offensive player in his prime years. What if a student has ability like LCW of MAL, having one coach like ardy may not help extract the full potential of this example student which should be talk with a coach with an offensive slant. 2. cdn badminton players dont have enough world class players to spar with, only just ardy now (ex pros chanarong and billy gilliland are too old to move fast anymore). In china and INA, there are players itching to overtake u so u have to learn adapt to play with all sort of players. 3. peanut funding from sport canada. 4. lack of facilities. In calgary, population of ~950,000, we only have ~10 real badminton courts and they are all with private clubs. All other courts are make shift pseudo badminton courts.
Number 1 and 2 are both big factors. Naturally I'm more of an offensive player, Ardy is hugely defensive. He's a great coach tho.
Ardy was a very aggressive player in earlier years. If I remember correctly, he changed his style after severe illness (hepatitis??) which threatened his sporting career. A good coach will evaluate your overall skills (fundamentals like stroke production and footwork usage) and work from there. In my opinion, Ardy is a very experienced player and should know what it takes to reach the top. It's your personality (how you see the game) and skills (what is needed to accomplish your vision) that will build your playing style, not the coach. The coach should discuss and make recommendations about it, not change your style.
Alos, Logistically this is one wide country to try and "bring together" when it comes to players being able to play aginst one another. Popel in Germany can go play in people Denmark in matter of hours in a Club to Club type of set up. We have three hours to Edmonton, which doesn't have big numbers - it's ten hours to Vancouver, eight to Saskatoon, close to 12 to Winnapeg. That's a lot of travelling to get upper level competition in. Don't get me started on the private clubs like Glencoe/Winter.. they really piss me off and I view them as part of problem with out system. Funding is also a problem, cause we simple don't get any like other countries.
These two points are ridiculas, of course population is important. The more people there are, the more people there are gunning for first place in the country. Why do you think the Chinese do so well? It's because if they don't train harder than anyone else on the circut, someone from China would gladly take their place to become a national badminton hero. Certain smaller countries do so well, not because of the large talent pool but because of proximity to other countries. Denmark doesn't need a billion people to produce great badminton players because it is very close to several other countries (pretty much all of europe is easy to access). If someone from vancouver wanted to enter the toronto open, it just wouldn't happen. Lets travel 5,000 KM about, to compete in a national tourney -----> no thanks. As for the gym class, not many people are pushed from a young age to play badminton, infact most discovered it in gym class, or playing in their backyard. Many of the top level players in ontario weren't introduced formally to badminton until they were 10-11 years old. Much to late to become a professional. (and yes, I've talked to a few including a rising star in Northern Ontario. GO Sylvestre!)
You pointed out Canada's impressive international ranking achievements. You are right about this. You also right about Canada's badminton population being largely "a bunch of poor hicks who grew up playing badminton in gym class". I simply pointed out that the ones with the rankings are not among the gym class hicks. Charmaine Reid is one of the top-30 Canadians and she grew up playing in clubs and never played for a high-school team even. I'm led to believe that Anna Rice and Bobby Milroy are in the same boat. Prove me wrong on this point and then call my point "ridiculous". If Sylvestre is a promising young star who grew up playing in gym class, great. But use him as an example to prove that my claim is "ridiculous" only when he matches your claim about the top-30. As for populations, did you miss my comment that "There is no doubting the factors you mention"? In other words, population can be a factor. However, it's the competitive badminton population that is the factor not the population at large. If every country had equal opportunity to engage in competitive badminton, then straight population would be the main factor in determining the size of the talent pool. China combines access to the competitive stream with a huge total population. Brazil and India don't and that is why they can't compete with Malaysia or Denmark. Your point about Danish players being competitive because of their proximity to other European nations is, to borrow your expression, ridiculous. First of all, why wouldn't Germany be stronger in badminton as they have 20 times the population and even more shared borders? Second, how does Denmark's proximity to other European countries subsitute for the number of people who are "gunning for first place in the country"? Danish players aren't in danger of losing their spots on the Danish national team to Germans or Czechs. They do have lots of other Danes "gunning" for their spots, though. That is because Denmark gives a lot of young people the chance to play badminton and to try to be competitive.
That wasn't my point, I was simply saying Denmark can make up for the smaller talent pool in the country because the talent pool has much more chance to develope because of neighbouring competition. If Canada was next to any even remotely competitive countries (england for example), our team would be much stronger. Ontop of which, all of these factors go hand and hand, along with the promise to earn a great living. It's much easier to make millions playing hockey, then it is to play badminton. Especially here. The reason why germany isn't stronger could have many factors. Maybe they're just not badminton players? Maybe their team has poor funds? Maybe they lack the experience (coaching wise) to create an international level team. Who knows. I'm just saying, Proximity is a huge factor, why train harder if your already the best in your region?
Only players I know of that came through the high school grassroots system who has made an impact internationally were Keith Chan and Darryl Yung. ( I played Darryl many times in High School) Most others have come through the private multipurpose club system to my knowledge. Oh, wait, one more - Mike Butler as far as I know trained on his own. Bobby Milroy simply has parents who can afford for him to play over in Denmark and get his game up to a international level. ( don't know about dabeka or any of the others)
I agree that badminton isn't too popular in Canada unfortunately (makes it hard to find courts to play) but in Ottawa, we do have Dominic Soong who runs a school. He used to be former mens doubles #2 in the world, and now is living here. An amazingly nice fellow. www.soong.ca I hope to take his classes one day.
Billy Gilliand former number 1 or 2 doubles player is a principal at a school in Calgary as well. He used to coach the MRC team but stopped this year.
i also like to add, in my opinion, that denmark, unlike USA, isnt commercially driven. Unlike other developing countries (china, russia, etc) where lots of fans and players jumping into golf, hockey,tennis or other money sports bandwagon, danish seems to hold onto to their heritage/culture more so than the other. Denmark was once a great badminton nation and still is where as for canada, england and the USA, it was.
You can do a lot with a small population. Down here in NZ we've only got 4 million, and while badminton isn't a national sport we've got players in the top 40 in all disciplines, and top 20 for some. Assuming the IBF rankings are anything to go by We have alright sparring partners - we're constantly beating down on the Aussies (though admittedly they are getting stronger). I think what we have is a fairly strong badminton population in NZ. In Auckland alone, I can think of at least eight different clubs. Having such a strong badminton population sure helps to keep badminton thriving, and allows for more coaches and local talent to emerge.
Please let us not discuss the Whyte trophy! As to factors, New Zealand Badminton gets a large portion of funding not from Government but affilation fees from its member regions. Noting that Daniel and Sara have done very well, NZ spent a lot of money on training them, including having them based in Europe for a large portion of time, competing in plenty of tournaments at high standards. Don't worry with Badminton Australia announcing a new national coach - Claus Poulsen, the direction is changing.
