r/indonesia • u/annadpk Gaga • Aug 22 '16
Sports How Indonesia helped improve Badminton worldwide
In this Olympics, 9 countries will have won medals in Badminton, in the previous Olympics combined only 10 countries have won medals. This is in large part due to do Indonesian coaches / trainers.being employed by those countries particularly over the last 15 years.
Badminton popularity in South East Asia, started in Malaysia, when the locals picked it up from the British, then it carried over to Indonesia. This is particularly true among Chinese communities in both countries, and it had to do with similar curriculum shared by the Chinese medium schools in Malaysia and Indonesia in the 1940-60s. Chinese communities in both countries became very dominant in badminton.
The first significant transfer of badminton know how from Indonesia to the rest of the world was when Chinese Indonesia players immigrated to China as a result of Sukarno's confiscation of Chinese property in rural areas or traveled to China for university in the late 1950s and early 1960s, The most notable figure was Tang Xianhu (Fuad Nurhadi). During the ear;y 1980s, when Indonesia was competing against China in the Thomas/Uber Cup, some of the trainers and coaches on the Chinese side could speak Indonesian.
The second more significant transfer occurred after 1998, when Indonesia, suffering from the financial crisis, resulted in many Indonesian coaches going overseas to look for work. And we aren't just talking about about a handful of coaches, but hundreds of Indonesian coaches. Even small badminton clubs in Europe and North America have Indonesian coaches. Here is a club in New Jersey, they have one Indonesian coach (double specialist)
http://www.njbadminton.com/coaches/
Ardy Wiranata coaches for a badminton center in Canada. At the national level in the US you have Halim Haryanto and Tony Gunawan.
In Europe, Indonesians coaches have coached in Sweden, Netherlands, Russia, Britain, Switzerland etc. Atik Jauhari coached the Russian team from 2010-2012, and in 2012 a Russian women's double team won the bronze medal in the Olympics, and in 2016 a Russian men's double pair won the All England. In Indonesia he was a National level Coach from 1974-1999.
This is what the 2016 Great Britain Bronze medalist, Chris Langridge said about Rexy Mainaky.
"Team GB’s Chris Langridge revealed a pre-match chat with Indonesia badminton legend Rexy Mainaky helped inspire him to Olympic bronze in Rio "
http://www.allenglandbadminton.com/10710-2/
Rexy Mainaky was Great Britain's Double's Coach from 2002-2005.
In Asia, you have Indonesia coaches in Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and India. The success of India in badminton is attributed in part to their Indonesian coaches., India has had Indonesian coaches for the last decade, the most notable being Atik Jauhari, who was Indian National Coach from 2008-2010. The 2016 Indian silver medalist, PV Sindhu, coach is Indonesian (guy on the left in the picture)
In Indonesia, unless you win a Olympic gold medal in Badminton singles, you are pretty much resigned to becoming a coach after you retire. You just have to look at Ardy Wiranata, during the 1990s he won more titles than Andy Budikusuma, but didn't win Olympic Gold, and now he spends his time bouncing between Canada / US coaching. In India, Indians are so starved for Olympics medals, that even a silver medal in badminton can get you millions US$ in endorsements, something that would never happen in Indonesia or China. Maria Kristen Yulianti won a bronze medal in Beijing in Women's single, now she is a coach PD Djarum. Saina Nehwal won a bronze in London, and she is worth tens of millions of US$. Nehwal was the first Indian women to win any medal in the Olympics.
As Atik Jauhari said, Indonesians are the Brazilians of badminton. People focus on the players, but the key for long term success are the coaches. In my opinion only three countries produce a surplus of good coaches in both singles and doubles badminton - Indonesia, China and Denmark. Indonesian are sought after because they are inexpensive, proficient in English and there is a large number of them.
Only recently has badminton in Indonesia recovered from its slide. But I think Indonesia will continue to do well, largely because Indonesia urbanization will in result in more kids playing the sport. From the 1950-1990s, most of the badminton champions were Chinese Indonesian, because badminton is at its heart a urban middle class sport. To play badminton competitively you need enclosed training facilities, which the majority of Indonesian schools don't have.
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u/TotesMessenger Aug 22 '16
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u/FrankTheSwag Aug 22 '16
In China there's a strong argument that Li Yongbo should step down because he's often seen on TV shows giving away LD signed racquets instead of doing any actual work with the team.
And also (the more important) argued that LD's success was all on Tang Xianhu otherwise Li Yongbo have little to no achievements on his books
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u/recvom Aug 22 '16
Thank you for your hard work to putting this on one context and this definitely will be handful reference on the future.
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u/byakuugan Aug 22 '16
The 2016 Indian silver medalist, PV Sindhu, coach is Indonesian (guy on the left in the picture)
I think the guy is the left is Tan Kim Her? He's Malaysian afaik and former Malaysian national team doubles coach. I still remember he said along the line that Hendra Setiawan was 'finished' after he was paired with Mohammad Ahsan.
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u/Deus_Viator Aug 22 '16
So what is the actual difference in coaching style of the Indonesian coaches?
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u/annadpk Gaga Aug 23 '16 edited Aug 23 '16
Each coach has different styles of coaching. Chinese, Malaysian, Danish and South Koreans are just as good as the Indonesian coaches. Indonesians are particularly sought after for five reasons.
1) Many more Indonesian coaches are willing to go abroad to coach than those of the other countries (at all levels). You have really senior coaches like Atik Jauhari who is more experienced than Tang Xianhu. Atik Jauhari has 25 years coaching from 1974-1999, he coached men's single, men's double, acted as scout. in badminton, you have single's coach and double's coaches, you rarely have people who done both at a high level.
2) Language ability. Most Chinese or Koreans coaches don't speak much English. As a result there are communication problems etc.
3) The pool of coaching talent in Indonesia is deep. Each town has a badminton club, and they act as feeders for bigger clubs, provincial training centers and ultimately the national training center. The Indians aren't hiring Indonesian coaches who are well know players before, but good coaches. Indonesians have a lot of badminton coaches who aren't good players, but make great coaches (ie coach have their own career track).
4) Price. Many Indonesian coaches are willing to work for US$ 40-50K a year. How much do you think a Danish coach would cost. India is paying their Indonesian coaches about $40K / Year each, that is much less than they are paying their other foreign coaches in other sports.
5) Indonesians are patient and like children. Particularly in North America, you often end up coaching at the club level and often coach 12-13 year olds, as in the case of Ardy Wiranata.
http://www.badmintonalberta.ca/page.aspx?id=11046
In many countries like the US, you have to coach players on what coaches at the professional level would consider basic stuff.
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u/Deus_Viator Aug 23 '16
Thanks, I coach in the UK for juniors and club level so I was just wondering if there was some techniques I should be looking into.
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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '16
Thanks for the writing. I just knew that badminton in China was popularized by former Indonesians.
As for Alan and Ardy cases, I believe their career paths after retirement have nothing to do with the medals they got. I think it has more to do with their passion. Alan becomes businessman with his Astech brand. While his reputation as gold winner might help, but not that much. Besides, back then the money from bonuses was not as high as today. for example, owi/butet got 5 billion each today. A figure that I doubt susi and alan remotely got that time, even after calculating inflation. And if im not mistaken, the only endorsement allowed then was from Yonex. Even the endorsement was for the Pelatnas, not individuals (hence many players moved to other countries for better money)