Olympics Aye, Thomas Cup, Bye-Bye

A high powered High Performance Team (HPT) has been formed and by the looks of it, their three-men team is formed to only look out for the Olympics gold medal if today's report in the media is to be digested.

The HPT has in away, downgraded Thomas Cup targets to a secondary level and put Olympic glory at the pedestal. Ok, this is all fine but why waste time in the first place to interview and look for people when Datuk James Selvaraj alluded to his part time job in BAM as not having enough powers and recognition from BAM to make huge decisions which are impactful on the national governing body of badminton? This decision could have been made by the coaching committee earlier by checking with the coaches on the quality of players at their disposal.

Now you hire another two more people and by the looks of it, short-term glory (if we achieve Olympic gold) but then what happens to the second echelon of shuttlers? If it has been stated today that Thomas Cup takes a back seat, then maybe Hafiz Hashim shouldn't have been given a last-minute call-up even if he is better than most players after Lee Chong Wei but now is the time to groom and throw all the young players into the deep end so that we have a strong team for the next Thomas Cup.

Of course, people's lips will say why Zulfadli Zulkifli is not in to gain exposure when Victor Axelsen from Denmark whom he beat in the World Junior Final, has already made it to his senior squad. Putting Hafiz and everyone else in the second and third singles slot is not going to make a huge impact in the Thomas Cup as we slowly see how our badminton slowly head lower and lower intot he abyss.

Badminton is going the same way like women's squash, after Nicol David who is there? After Lee Chong Wei, who?

BAM should have saved everyone the torment and just kept Datuk James, no need to waste time and distract who else to join the HPT and kept on with training and coming up with achieveable objectives rather than flip flopping with major tournament shuttling by, in a jiffy.

Question is if we don't win gold, will the HPT be disbanded?