KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 1 ― With just two years remaining before the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) doubles coaching director Rexy Mainaky is now focusing on turning leading national women’s pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah into a medal contender.

Rexy said the world No 11 seem to be on the same par or able to challenge other pairs in the top 10 positions.

"I have to ensure they don’t go to the Olympics just to participate. They have to compete to be medal candidates.

"If we win a medal, it will be good for Malaysia because the women’s doubles event has never contributed any medal at the Olympic Games before,” he told reporters after the training session yesterday.

The former Indonesian doubles ace also hoped to help another national pair, Anna Cheong Ching Yik-Teoh Mei Xing, to qualify for the prestigious sports event.

However, Rexy stressed that the world’s 29th pair, who have the potential to go further, need to increase their confidence level ahead of Paris 2024.

"Their self-confidence has to be more firm. They once beat two pairs who are in the top 10 positions, namely Lee So Hee-Shin Seung Chan from South Korea (ranked third) at the 2022 Malaysia Open and Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara from Japan (ranked sixth) at the 2022 Malaysia Masters,” he said.

At the same time, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics gold medallist for the men’s doubles event hopes three national men’s doubles pairs, including world champions Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik and 2022 German Open winners Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani, would also qualify for the Olympics.

However, he admitted that based on current performance, it is pretty difficult for any of the national mixed doubles pairs to emulate the achievement of Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying, who won silver at Rio 2016 in Brazil.

Last May, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) announced that the qualification period for the 2024 Olympic Games known as the "Race to Paris" will start on May 1, 2023.

The 2024 Paris Olympics is scheduled to take place from July 26 to August 11. ― Bernama