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| Badminton team when they left for the Paris Olympics. Yonhap News |
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| Ahn Se-young is shedding tears of emotion with coach Kim Hak-kyun and coach Ronnie after winning the women's singles gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Paris (France) = Reporter Jeong Jae-geun cjg@sportschosun.com |
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At a time when we are determined to make a hopeful start to the new year, Korean badminton is still gloomy. South Korean badminton, which has the world's No. 1, appeared in its first international competition of the new year, but it turned out that it caused an international disgrace due to the unprecedented absence of a national team coach and coach.
According to Sports Chosun coverage on the 6th, the Korean badminton team plans to play in four international competitions in January starting on the 7th with the national team coach and coach vacant. Starting with the first international competition in 2025 'Malaysia Open (Super 1000)' which will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from the 7th to the 12th, the so-called 'Southeast Asia Tour' will be held, including the Indian Open (Super 750·14-19), the Indonesian Masters (Super 500·21·26), and the Thai Masters (Super 300·January 28~February 2).
These competitions will feature first-place players from the national team, including Ahn Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance), the world's No. 1 player in women's singles, and Lee So-hee (Incheon International Airport) and Baek Ha-na (MG Saemaeul Geumgo). In particular, Seo Seung-jae, Kim Won-ho (Samsung Life Insurance), Kang Min-hyuk (Samsung Life Insurance), and Jin-yong (Yonex) are planning to form a new men's doubles group this year and use it as an important test opportunity, so they are in desperate need of a leader's hand.
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| Coach Ahn Se-young and Ronnie. Ahn Se-young's Instagram Capture |
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However, there is no official coach-coach on this national team tour. Only coach Ronnie Agustinus (47, Indonesia), who is in charge of fasting as a foreign leader, remains. Coach Ronnie can only coach the Indian Open because he has to return home due to visa reissuance. As a temporary measure, the Badminton Association reportedly asked for cooperation with the players' team leaders to accompany them to the international competition.
The deformed situation, in which coaches and coaches are vacant, was brought on by the former executive under Chairman Kim Taek-kyu. Chairman Kim has been suspended from his position since he returned his position in the middle of last month to seek re-election in the election of the next president of the association. Just before Chairman Kim was suspended from his job, he sparked a controversy over irregularities in the process of deciding to re-hire the national team coach and coach. The term of five coaching staff, including head coach Kim Hak-kyun, Han Dong-sung Lee Kyung-won (both in charge of doubles), Jung Hoon-min and Sung Ji-hyun (both in charge of singles), was until December 31 last year. They left the national team due to the expiration of their term, and there was a vacancy as the appointment of a successor leader was canceled.
The appointment of a successor was canceled because the former association's executive branch conducted a reappointment evaluation of the existing coaching staff, including head coach Kim, causing disputes over regulations and unfair evaluation, resulting in complaints from higher-level organizations such as the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Mining and the Korea Sports Association. Coach Kim and coach Han Dong-sung Lee Kyung-won strongly protested the association's poor administration on the 9th of last month when the association notified four people except coach Sung (re-appointment decision).
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| Chairman Taek-gyu Kim, answering questions at the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee on October 24, 2024. Yonhap News |
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Since then, Chairman Kim has resigned as chairman to run for the election, and Vice Chairman Kim Young-bok has served as acting chairman. Acting Chairman Kim Young-bok judged that there was a point in raising complaints from director Kim and others and took measures to reconsider it by the executive department of the next chairman.
The next presidential election will be held on the 16th. It is expected to take at least a month to form a new executive and reconsider whether the national team coach and coach will be re-employed. There is also a mandatory regulation that requires a public offering period of at least one month even if a new coach-coach is openly recruited. As the Asian Championship and the European Championship are scheduled in February, there is a high concern that the prolonged absence of the national team's coaching staff will adversely affect the performance of Korean badminton. An official of the association's executive team said, "Only the players are suffering from the wrong buttoning in the full-time executive"The bigger problem is that no one wants to take responsibility for it. " he pointed out.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
