You are right. I think the most efficient way to raise your own level is to spar with players of a higher level. Many players will fall to the wayside because they basically cannot compete. But some players (Kendrick Lee is the best example) will play much better (than they would have) because of quality sparring partners. However, I pity players like Ronald Susilo who have no quality players to spar with day in day out. Despite that, he does well in international tournaments.
im sure singapore's BA has an excelent training programme, facilities and etc to compensate for any lacking. after all, they did PRODUCE Ronald Susilo the badminton star... not merely importing him. cheers jug
Well, the IBF got it right. And if the wrong term is used as widely as you said, then it seems only IBF got it right. In many cases, I see rules like "Players who are born after dd/mm/yyyy are eligible." IBF could have used a more fine-grained rule like this but they didn't. However, it was a bit misleading for me to say that World Juniors is not strictly Under-19. It implied error on the IBF part. IBF never said it is an Under-19 tournament. They just say it is a World Junior Championship. I've never heard that news or I may have forgotten it, but it's good news to me.
I give Ronald Susilo, the individual, more credit than anything else, even more than the excellent training programme and facilities. For one Ronald Susilo, how many have failed to make it?
I agree that Ronald must be 'special' to be a champion and to have beaten some of the world's best and even the current World No. 1, despite his seemingly lack of high quality sparring partners. Unlike Lin Dan, who has world class teammates to spar with him, Ronald can only rely on the locals and imported talents who themselves have not quite reached world class standards. By his example, Ronald has proven to the sceptics that it cannot be possible for one with limited resources. Apart from Ronald's determination and will power to become a champion, it is not totally correct to say that Ronald does not have quality sparring partners. Good coaches can think of ways to remedy this weakness. One method is to engage Ronald to play with two or three sparring partners at the same time. It is like one versus two or three or even four good players simultaneously. This will certainly place great demands on Ronald's skill, agility, speed and coordination and may actually wear him out faster than he would playing against just one world class player. This method could also cause undue injuries as the player has to play above himself in order to keep pace with his many rivals.
hi. i seem to like this discussion... so if you dont mind 1) you must understand ibf's rational of using January 1 of each year of the cut off date... as suppose to the dd/mm/yy (date) of the tournament. the reason being using the tournament date can be manipulated by organizers to benefit their 'home' players. now dont get me wrong... im not saying that it does happen all the time or what so ever... its just that the possibility for it to happen is very real. e.g. player A is top seed born in june 1988. player B is second seed born in october 1988 and is a 'home' player of the tournament organizers. so it would be very tempting to eliminate player A from the same Age category by hosting the tournament in lets say july 1988 where player A will no longer be eligible to play (in same category). i know it sounds cheap.... but in the world we live in... 2) another problem with using the tournament date is mainly due to the excessive clerical work the organizers will be burdened with. also imagine these senarios i) tournament date= 26 june. players b-day= 27 june ii) tournament date= 30 aug. hundreds of players send in entries.... then tournament postponed . imagine the confusion and utter chaos :crying: anyway cheers again jug
Good point. Basically, for the world juniors, the eligibility is for those born after 01/01/(year of tournament - 18). No complications. No questions asked. For other tournaments, the eligibility rule is not clear-cut as the organisers rarely publicise their regulations, like this recent tournament in Singapore.
