KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 — Senior men’s doubles pair Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi are among seven shuttlers to be shown the exit by Badminton Association of Malaysia in the bid to form a new Project 24 squad.

Besides the world number 19th pair, others missing the boat are three men’s singles shuttlers namely Song Joo Vern, Tan Jia Wei and Muhammad Ziyad Md Taha and women’s doubles pair Lim Peiy Yee-Lim Chiew Sien.

Project 24, which was launched in September last year, was aimed at taking Malaysia back into the Thomas Cup final and winning an Olympic gold medal in 2024.

BAM secretary-general Datuk Kenny Goh who is also coaching and training (C&T) committee chairman made the announcement today after a one and a half hours meeting at Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM) in Bukit Kiara today.

Kenny said that the decision was made after reviewing the performances of players based on key performance indicators (KPIs) and four criteria set for players to achieve as of Dec 31 2019.

"I want to say that all the players in our stable in BAM have been with us for many years. In fact, I even know some of them as school-going children.

"They have contributed a lot to BAM and country and they have given their best basically but however as in any sports organisation when we have to do a review, we have to look at the overall performance and therefore, we have decided to retain some of those players and some we decided to let them go.

"But I also want to emphasise here that we have not completely close the door on them. If they so desire to continue playing, we will still review them and if they prove themselves to be worthy of the national squad we will still open the door to them for the opportunity to represent the country,” he told reporters.

Kenny said that it was not an easy decision to make especially with the absence of competitive sparring players after Yew Sin-Ee Yi had left the national line-up, next month.

But Kenny confirmed that BAM had made a decision to move forward and took everything into consideration including the Thomas Cup and Olympic Qualifying which is ending in April.

"It was not an easy decision but we want to be really serious in moving forward by making the necessary changes. We don’t want business as usual for the players and coaches,” he added.

However, Kenny said it would not be easy going for players retained in the national line-up as they would also need to prove themselves within four months before another review would be made in April 2020.

"For those who are retained, we will sit down with them again and do another review. We will give them ample tournaments for the next three to four months for them to prove themselves.

"We are not neglecting 2020 Tokyo Olympics. We have also agreed that the milestone for Project 24 is Tokyo 2020. So in the meeting today, we did strategic planning on focusing more on the players we feel can qualify including independent players. We will help them to work towards qualifying as well as winning a medal in the 2020 Olympics,” he said.

Kenny said the C&T committee also acknowledged that the women’s department had shown improvement, but has yet to reach a desirable level.

He said BAM is actively looking for coaches to beef up the department.

"We are actively looking for coaches to beef up the women’s singles and doubles department. Currently, it is not easy to find coaches as they have been ‘locked’ by other teams (for Tokyo Olympics),” he said.

Meanwhile, national team coaches were safe as they were currently focused on getting their players to qualify for the Olympics.

The men, women and mixed doubles units are headed by Datuk Misbun Sidek, Datuk Tey Seu Bock and Chin Ee Hui respectively.

The other coaches are Hendrawan, Indra Wijaya (men’s singles); Paulus Firman, Vountus Indra Mawan (men’s doubles), Low Wei Sheng (women’s singles); Rosman Razak, Wong Pei Tty (women’s doubles); and Teo Kok Siang (mixed doubles).

National coaching director Wong Choong Hann remained as the main overseer of the project.

Following are the players retained in the national squad:

Men’s singles: Lee Zii Jia, Cheam Jun Wei, Lim Chong King, Leong Jun Hao, Ng Tze Yong, Aidil Sholeh Ali Sadikin

Women’s singles: Goh Jin Wei, Soniia Cheah, Lee Ying Ying, S.Kisona, Eoon Qi Xuan

Men’s doubles: Aaron Chia, Soh Wooi Yik, Goh Sze Fei, Nur Izzuddin Mohd Rumsani, Low Hang Yee, Man Wei Chong, Ng Eng Cheong, Chia Weijie, Choong Hon Jian, Chang Yee Jun, Tee Kai Wun

Women’s doubles: Vivian Hoo, Yap Cheng Wen, Chow Mei Kuan, Lee Meng Yean, Teoh Mei Xing, Anna Cheong, Pearly Tan, M. Thinaah, Yap Ling

Mixed doubles: Goh Soon Huat, Shevon Lai, Tan Kian Meng, Lai Pei Jing, Chen Tang Jie, Peck Yen Wei, Cheah Yee See, Hoo Pang Ron. — Bernama