Oh no, I wouldn't be able to qualify with your tough immigration rules. And I still get nightmares of being confronted by white teenagers on a quiet beach in the Gold Coast who threatened to lynch me and used abusive words such as "You Asians get out!" despite the fact that I was only a tourist. But I find security and comfort in the presence of my BC friends in Melbourne when I last visited during the Commonwealth Games.
yeap, saw abedeng sitting just behind those ina fans in a section. abedeng was too busy with his PDA/i phone giving live commentary i think
Thanks a lot Avataar for the pictures & reports. Thanks Abedeng for the scenic pictures, live commentary & reports (hope you had a safe flight back to KL).
Not to mention losing some female fans who oppose skimpy attire just to for attraction purposes. How to move around comfortably if have to wear tight clothing or short skirts? More time will be spent worrying if the skirts will fly up & show too much rather than concentrating on the game. Our WPT also oppose the idea.
the airport adventures Pi was flying via Dubai on Emirates. She seemed to enjoy the architecture of the new international airport (which is very impressive im must add) and kept pointing out her observations of the ceiling style to her coach. As if Pi wasnt a treat, Taufik aslo showed up at the airport. He was with the ppl from Yonex and they had coffee at the Coffee Bean booth. He was more interested with is phone and taling to the Yonex fellow. Taufik also browsed at the "Landmark Kids" stall before they dissappeared to their boarding gates.
A natural looker like Pi dont need any enhanced attire, know what I mean? To me BWF dont need to conduct studies to make badminton more popular, BWF just need to modify/alter the regulations/scoring system or maybe playing surface to provide the Europeans/Westerners an advantage and the game will take off just like field hockey. In the 70s, field hockey was played on grass but once IHF tweaked the rules and reverted to artificial turf it gave the western nations an advantage, thus the emergence of Holland, Australia, Germany etc as major hockey nations. When they changed the playing surface, suddenly the game is about power rather than skills. Same thing can happen with badminton.
The New Hyderabad Airport at Shamshabad For those wannabe travellers, here's a peek into the new airport ..... 1 and 2, views of the airport 3. The plane that brought me from Chennai 4 to 6, views from the airport bus.
The Day After Want to know the effects of a red-eye flight to even the fittest athlete? Well, here it is .......
Finals Day 1. Loyal INA supporters, very singleminded, they took stations 75 minutes before the battle. 2. IND supporters, on top if INA supporters as crunch time arrives (XD final) 3. Preparations before the Finals 4 to 5. CHN squad antics 6 to 7. A very happy Ma Jin, has very good rapport with her coach Chen Xingdong 8. BC Team after the Finals "Venue Inspection".
Yes, avataar and I discussed that too, everything from revealing female attire to F1-style "technological bans" such as reducing the string tension back to the 20s, min/max weight of racquets, using standardized (tournament supplied) equipment etc. Even the banning of coaches from giving advice at every rally. And no, badminton cannot be tailored the same way as field hockey. I did mention to avataar that tennis popularity took off long before revealing outfits came into being. Revealing outfits only came about from personal endorsements to the particular athlete. One major decision is to whether BWF would consider reducing the involvement of each country's Badminton Governing Bodies. This can result is players having more say in what tournaments they can play in. Also, multi-country partnerships such as Flandy-Ruskikh and Haw CH-Li Yujia would be a lot more commonplace. Expanding badminton with international club competitions (instead of country vs country) internationally would add more variety. Imagine top Indonesian clubs like Djarum squaring off with top European ones, this could catch on and best of all, any club can employ any player from different nationalities ala European Champions League Soccer.
Taufik's Supremacy His stiffest challenge on the day was to understand the questions that the TV presenter was asking...
Yup, Taufik was scratching on his head trying to understand Indian dialect ...... wakakakaka. Good job Taufik! He really knows how to please and react to the crowd.
The UNCLES blew away their Singaporean opposition. they were in pretty high spirits and were all laughs and jokes when speaking to the guys from Bernama.
Flandy & Marissa FL & VM were a league above the Indians. JG & DV did show some sparks of the quality which has seen their performance reach a good standard but to lose 8 points in a row and blow it all away.... Gopi and Atik had an immediate post mortem with the two after the match finished, while Chetan had words of consolation for his wife- Jwala
picked up this topic with "davey" as well & discussed former great players getting involved in badminton administration. also media/PR consultants can be hired to market the game quite like the coup pulled off by the "Indian Premier League" in cricket
