Indonesian mixed doubles coach Richard Mainaky is angered by the unfairness his players are facing in the Olympic qualification race and asked “what kind of work is BWF doing.”
The 2021 European Championships was successfully completed last week in Ukraine, while its counterpart, the Badminton Asia Championships 2021 which was scheduled to be held in China got cancelled/ postponed due to the pandemic.
Both were Olympic qualifier tournaments that awarded valuable Olympic ranking points to the players.
Last week, many top players including Goh Liu Ying, Chan Peng Soon and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja highlighted to BWF that it would be unfair to award Olympic ranking points to European players when the Asian players don’t have the opportunity to play in the Badminton Asia Championships.
The latest Olympic qualification rankings were published yesterday, and as many of the players feared, qualification ranking points have been awarded to the European players who participated in the 2021 European Championships.
The worst victims of this injustice have been the Indonesian pair of Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.
In last week’s ranking, before it was updated yesterday, the pair was ranked 8th in the Olympic race and was qualified to play at the Olympics.
After it was updated yesterday, Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja have been pushed down from 8th to 9th by English pair Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith who won the silver at the European Championships. Falling down to the 9th rank means they are no longer qualified for the Olympics.
Faizal and Widjaja’s coach Richard Mainaky fiercely criticized BWF by saying, “We have all been disappointed with what happened at the All England. Now it has happened here again, what kind of work is BWF doing?
“It (European Championships) should still go on but it should not be counted. Is it fair if we are sure to lose?”
“So in my opinion this is no longer fair, does this mean that BWF gives undue advantage to Europe? BWF should be wise,” he added.
