What is the future of talent in badminton?

Jij het nieuws, wij een tikkie!

The question: what is talent?

I know a little about the way Henri thinks about talent and also the problems he is facing. In the Netherlands we have been dominated by a system of very fast selection and therefore also rejecting a lot of players. The slogan 'personal and individual guiding' of the players was nothing more than a slogan. There is no time to nurture talent, this in sharp contrast to the story Hans Kristian Vittinghus was telling about the long time he was getting from the Danish Badminton Federation.

Knowing that we almost for 90% fail to spot the right talent and give them the support and conditions to grow, we are pretty sure we are investing money in the wrong players. Most of the 'talents' of today will not be the champions of tomorrow.

Beside this we now also know that the special school system 'Topsport Talent Scholen' (TTS) don't work according to a study done by the International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Take beside this the stop of subsidies by the NOC*NSF and we know we have to start looking for a whole other way to structure training centers and the way we are looking at talent.

There will be far less central training and players will get training from several different coaches in different situations and every coach will have their own plan. Co-operation between coaches is very poor in the Netherlands so it seems logical that there will be a lot of contradictions about how a talent has to do the training. With all these things in mind the national coach put the responsibility of talent development in the hands of the players.

What do (former) professional players like Vittinghus say?

This is also what HK Vittinghus is telling about the Danish system, but there is a big difference between the culture in Denmark and Holland. Young players have a far better theoretical understanding of the badminton sport in Denmark. In order to be able to switch to a new system in our country we need to start with an education program to make sure players have a basic understanding of tactics and how to make their own training programs and coaches need to learn to work like consultants for the players and helping them with gaining the knowledge needed to work with 4 or 5 different coaches.

Badminton is not a group sport but we do almost only group training, in the clubs, RTCs and even in the national (junior) teams. This type of training will again lead to very ineffective improvement periods for players. Knowing that you will not get the personal training that you need in your training. Players need to go to other places to get this personal attention. In the system we have today talent cannot develop the way that is needed to be able to compete on international level.

In short this means that talent has nothing to do with success, talent is a gift at birth and it is up to you if you want to do something with that gift. To be called a talent is many times even a disadvantage, there is always that burden of expectation in the back of your mind and the chance that sport organizations will abuse you for your talent.

This is a real threat for young national team players who are not getting the time to develop to players like Viktor Axelsen and An Su-Young who were forced to play even if they were in over training or not fit. Vittinghus also made a very powerful statement against the BWF on behalf of the players.

Are we ready for a change of system in Holland?

I don't believe we are, thinking this way needs a cultural change first. There is no coach education in Holland, we depend on the BWF for that at this moment and that is the same organization that thinks that abuse of players is OK so we will not get independent thinking coaches from this kind of coach education.

I don't say there is no place for BWF 1, 2 and 3 but we should look alot more at what is needed in our own country and therefore a national coach education system is needed to get a lot more into detail.

When we are looking for players who are taking responsibility for their own development we need to get coaches who no longer give training to a whole group. They need to do training differentiation: giving several different trainings at the same time and work as a consultant.

Very slowly we will see small groups of players taking this responsibility and a couple of coaches who will support them. But it will take five to ten years before this will be the new accepted system in our country and by that time Denmark will be ahead again because we see them already started with this way of thinking.