KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 ― The national badminton squad will camp for 10 days in the Aire Sur La Lys region, France from July 10 to 20 to undergo a training camp before the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Road To Gold (RTG) programme coordinator Datuk Stuart Ramalingam said in addition to the pre-Olympic training camp, the RTG committee also fulfilled two other requests from the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) to undergo training camps abroad in preparation for two tournaments in China, namely the Asian Badminton Championships (BAC) 2024 in Ningbo (April 9 to 14) followed by Thomas Cup and Uber 2024 in Chengdu (April 28 to May 5).
“The first training camp before the BAC will start from March 26 to April 6 while the second training camp before the Thomas Cup and Uber will be from April 15 to 24,” he said after the RTG committee meeting yesterday.
So far, seven players under the auspices of BAM have been listed in the RTG programme, namely men's singles player Ng Tze Yong, 2022 world men's doubles champion Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, top women's doubles Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah and the country's number one mixed doubles Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei.
Meanwhile, Stuart said the RTG committee has given the green light for national track cycling champion Datuk Mohd Azizulhasni Awang and teammate Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom to undergo a centralised training camp before going to the world's biggest sports games.
He said the two riders will undergo two training camps each in Brisbane, Australia from March 23 to April 13 and Silverstone, United Kingdom from June 9 to 13 while the pre-Olympic training camp will be held in Mallorca, Spain from June 13 to August 1.
At the same time Stuart said the committee is also monitoring the progress of Mohd Azizulhasni's health after undergoing an open heart surgery in April 2022 at Epworth Richmond Hospital, Melbourne and continues to support his training and medical needs from time to time.
In other developments, RTG co-chairman Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria said Tze Yong had a successful operation on his back at the National Sports Institute recently and prayed for the 23-year-old's speedy recovery.
Besides the back injury, Tze Yong's dream to compete in the 2024 Olympic Games, scheduled from July 26 to August 11, is difficult to ensure after he also suffered a lower back muscle injury during the Malaysian Open in January.
Back surgery is expected to keep Tze Yong out of action for several weeks and the qualifying period for Paris 2024 will end on April 28.
A country can only have two representatives in the singles event, if both players are ranked in the world's top 16 in the Race to Paris rankings by the final qualifying period, with professional player Lee Zii Jia currently ranked 10th, while Tze Yong is ranked 15th but risks losing that position if he continues to miss out the qualifying tournament. ― Bernama
