A new broom will bring changes. Look at the changes in leadership in China.Every change brought great improvements. The biggest criticism I have against LYB is he didn't set the infrastructure in place to improve the standard of badminton in China. Having won all the major titles in the world he didn't set about to continue winning. He should have realised that he was very lucky to have LD,LXR,ZN,Zy and all the other senior players to win the titles for him. And that was the secret of winning; find more of these talented individuals. He sat back and reaped the accolades. I feel that Cai Yun could be a very suitable replacement. I just hope he brings a good team with him, for example ZN and ZY. There are also some in LYB's team that has produced results. Together we all hope that we can see improvements in the game in China.
Xu Wei is 21 this year, but that is not important. What I notice is that all the players here except for 16 year old Zhang Shuxian did not take part in the Chinese International Challenge. This means that all of them except Zhang are not in the National 2nd Team, Junior Team ( 少年队）or the Junior Backup Team ( 青少年队). I agree with you that they are not the best at the provincial level. Fujian, Quangdong, Quangxi, Liaoning, Beijing and a host of other provinces will have better players. To help unearth talent CBA may perhaps divide the provinces into 5 regions to run their own Internal Challenge with prize money to be won and strictly for non national senior or junior players. The players reaching the last-8 level of each category will then take part in another 3 National level Challenges. Players successful at the national levels will go for trials to join the appropriate national squads. This should be an annual affair like the CBSL Sponsorships should not be a problem with so many successful companies in China. Just a suggestion. For all I know CBA may already have a better system in place.
Your suggestion sounds good, except that it's not easy to attract foreign players for the IC events held in CHN, even for the CHN Masters GPG though no such problem for the China Open PSS which is mandatory for all the world's top players to participate. So for any IC tournament held in CHN without sufficient foreign players competing defeats the purpose, and you're talking about having 5 , one for each of the 5 regions as you proposed. Therefore, it would be better to send the provincial players to the overseas IC tourneys, with the added incentive of travelling abroad to compete with some of the world's national players. That I believe will be much more encouraging and motivating for the selected provincial players, the more so if they come home victorious. As it is, at the Austrian Open IC, the unknown Xu Wei coming from nowhere to take the WS title beating en route SIN's Liang Xiaoyu, VIE's Vu Thu Trang, and finally GER's veteran Olga Konon, is to her an inspirational feat. I wonder if CBA would take note of her success and invite her for a special selection exercise with some of the National 2nd Team players to see if she is good enough to be enrolled in the national squad. Actually, I do agree with you that there should be a provincial level championships across China but excluding the national players. Otherwise, the only opportunities for these provincial players are in the CBSL where, however, those provinces/teams without any sponsors don't even stand a chance to take part for lack of funds. Imagine, Lin Dan is part of the Beijing team which for lack of a sponsor failed to participate in the 2015/16 CBSL, except that Lin Dan being such a megastar could easily find himself a buyer, Qingdao, fortunately.
national squad of China afaik has three tiers: First team, second team and junior team. Players coming from the province usually need to spend at least one or two years at the junior or second team before they can be promoted to the First team. Wang Xin afaik was the only exception. She was obviously way better than everybody else.
Sorry that I didn't make myself clear. What I meant was to divide the provinces into 5 regions for CLOSED internal challenges with no foreign participation. Let those who reach the last eight take part in a further 3 closed internal challenges to determine who gets to go for trials to join the national second team or junior team.Prize money for the challenges can be in renminbi. Not all provinces can send their players oversea to take part in IC. Besides there is a negative side to sending players oversea for competition when they are not ready. There is always the possibility the players will irreversibly lose their confidence if they get knocked out, worst still thrashed, at the qualifying round. I hope this has not happened to the Szechuan boys. It is better that players from the national 2nd or junior team be sent for oversea competitions. As I said earlier CBA may already have a better system in place.
My bad, I misread your "Internal Challenge" as 'International Challenge'. Pardon me, I get your point now.
Come to think of it, it's quite amazing, and somewhat of a mystery, that Sichuan Province alone could get the approval to send their players to compete in a BWF-sanctioned 4th level international tournament where practically almost all the other foreign participants are national players with ,perhaps, a few independent but former national players. Yeah, the Sichuan boys did very badly, they all flunked at the qualification stage, disastrous. With the exception of Xu Wei who marched to the finals and clinched the WS crown,and the WD who survived until the semifinals, there were two XD stopped at the QFs while the rest fell by the wayside, exiting in the early rounds. On the whole, how we view the Sichuan team's performance is up to each individual - if I may use the analogy, akin to 'Is the glass half full or half empty ?'
Team mates didn't like the fact that Cai Yun is teaming up with Mathias Boe. Also his request has been rejected by some initial authority . Source : Badminton Live News
Mathias Boe is well known head ache for Chinese MD....teaming up with him ? No way in the hell Cai Yun back to China,quickly!
Yesterday, Feb 28 , happened to be the birthday of three current Chinese players, namely, Sun Yu, Huang Yaqiong, who both turned 22, and Shi Yuqi, 20. http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/badmin/2016-02-29/doc-ifxpvysv4986670.shtml Yesterday was also the last day of the Chinese Team's winter training at Lingshui, Hainan island, and by the time they flew back to Beijing and reached their apartments, it was already late at night, about 11 pm. As a result, both Sun Yu and Shi Yuqi said they didn't get to celebrate their birthday with anyone nor receive any presents other than greetings on their weibo(microblog). Huang Yaqiong was the fortunate one, she received a camera from her boyfriend, Huang Kaixiang, and a short-sleeved blouse from her close friend, Tang Jinhua. http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/badmin/2016-02-28/doc-ifxpvysx1730314.shtml
Xue Wei was impressive to beat Vietnams Xu who is a fast and tricky player. She was aggressive and had good footwork. She needs to reduce her mistakes and improve her net play to beat the top players. Not there yet but with improvement she could upset quite a few ranked above her. You can watch her match against Xu and Rong Shafer on YouTube
I was wondering where Wang XiaoLi gone to, alas, found that she retired! http://www.badzine.net/news/wang-xiaoli-retires/36561/
Chinese players lambast biased Line judges http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=323195 Wang Shixian : ''"I was put a lot of pressure by the judges," she said. "I think they should be fairer to China's palyers." Xue Song, a surprise semifinalist in the men's singles, said that European judges always make calls in the favor of European players. "But I don't think I should be affected by their rulings as long as they don't make two consecutive mistakes," he said. Badminton Legend Lin Dan was also not impressed by All England Judges & umpires, having to challenge several line calls throughout the week "I think they are OK," he said. "I don't think they have made any mistakes on purpose." But "They (the judges) should do better to the Asian players," Lin said. "We worked really, really hard for this sport."
