BadmintonBladet flest nyheder om badminton
By Women’s Badminton. March 29, 2021
If NASA can land a rover on Mars why did it prove so difficult to get some elite athletes together in Birmingham for the Yonex All England 2021?
No one has given a coherant explanation for decisions that were made. I wasn’t there, I’m not employed by any badminton organisation or the British authorities so this is just a speculative opinion piece from a fan.
“…this has been an extraordinarily painful and disappointing event for all of us…”
Badminton Indonesia – translated into English
There are some things that must be stated explicitly. There is never any excuse for the harassment of players, officials or the wider community. The winners of the titles are legitimate champions – none of these victories would be a surprise in ‘normal’ circumstances. The people at the ‘coal face’ worked incredibly hard to stage the tournament.
January in Thailand saw a quarantine bubble with three successful tournaments, facilitated by cash from the Thai government. Contrast this with the situation in England. In September 2020 the Chief Executive of Badminton England said that the Championships were under threat unless the British Govt gave £1M to support it; this was followed up by an announcement on 19.11 of £2M funding and then a government press release that confirmed £1.3M to cover “essential costs to ensure the survival of these organisations”. Given the significant reserves held by the BWF it’s disappointing that these funds were needed.
Perhaps lack of cash was the reason that no pre-tournament quarantine bubble was enforced for this competition. Players were travelling long distances by air to a nation that had suffered over 125,000 dead in the pandemic, the general population were enduring their third lockdown plus the UK Test and Trace system is widely regarded as a national scandal. What could possibly go wrong?
Even before the bombshell of the Indonesian team’s withdrawal there were remarkable events earlier in the week.
- Scottish players who travelled on a flight from Zurich after competing at the Swiss Open had to withdraw owing to a positive test on their flight.
- Mathias Boe questioned the authenticity of the tests after members of the Indian team returned positive results despite isolation in Zurich for the Swiss Open and 5 negatives in 14 days. (Of course this ignores the risks of infection on a flight to the UK.)
- One of the Danish team support staff tested positive and there was the real possibility of the whole team missing the tournament.
In fact, during the testing in Birmingham there had been 7 positives from players of 3 different nations and numerous ‘inconclusives’. In my opinion a sensible decision was made to retest but I am not clear why so many worrying results were produced. Were the samples collected and processed correctly and in a timely manner? ‘Inconclusive’ suggests contamination so is this the reason that retests were allowed?
Other peripherals also seemed odd. In the official preview it was a surprise to see Marcus Gideon and Kevin Sukamuljo described as ‘the Daddies’ whilst Praveen Jordan was called a former YAE MD champion. Earlier pieces had called the Stoeva’s Belarussian and suggested that Marin was the beaten finalist in 2020.
It was remarkable that BWF had provided so few line judges. How could it happen that in the R1 match between the Indonesian pair of Ahsan/Setiawan and Englishmen Lane/Vendy the line judge appeared to be from England too? Most sports do not allow compatriots to officiate over competitors – for obvious reasons.
I don’t think anyone – apart from the directors at Badminton England – has a clear timeline as to when the decision was made to require the Indonesian team and Neslihan Yigit to withdraw. Choosing this option rather than simply suspend play for the evening to give time for careful consideration meant that irreversible decisions with far-reaching consequences were put in motion. Presumably BWF had already discussed English covid protocols and worse case scenarios with all the team managers and yet the requirement for 10 days isolation came as a shock.
It is not easy to understand why the NHS ‘Test to Release’ scheme was not appropriate in this instance. It allows foreign travellers arriving in England to take a covid test on day 5 of their quarantine; a negative triggers a discharge. Reportedly there were impassioned attempts by BE to explore options to continue the players participation but they were unsuccessful. It was refered all the way up the line to Ambassador level but nothing could be done. Perhaps the ‘covid positive’ on the Istanbul flight trumped any possible solutions.
It’s a painful fact that it’s irrelevant to UK Covid law that the entire Indonesian team had consistently returned negative swabs and had been vaccinated before departure from Jakarta. There is a strong sense of injustice. The instances of positive results were not treated in the same way. Because no-one has explained what the differences are, there have been ridiculous accusations of foul play and unacceptable behaviour from people who are not fans and supporters of badminton. I think it has been naive of the badminton authorities to try to move the narrative swiftly away. This has been a opportunity for strong leadership and a willingness to learn but instead we are mired in a swirl of speculation and disappointment. I’m aghast at the insensitive tone of some social media posts; allowing poisonous comments to be appended to them is completely irresponsible as it inflames a difficult situation.
I feel sad because this has overshadowed one of the best tournaments in the world and it was so avoidable. It seems to me that the players are the ultimate victims but they have no strong unified voice to call for change. Why encourage athletes to travel halfway across the world without providing a pre-competition quarantine bubble? If the Court of Arbitration in Sport can unpick the facts from this who has to take ultimate responsibility?
This is the apology letter from the BWF https://womensbadminton.co.uk/2021/03/22/apology-from-bwf/ it was posted on the Kemenpora publicly available Instagram page and I copied it from there.
This is a piece about the same events by a fellow blogger and fan at Shuttle Smash https://shuttlesmash.com/all-england-2021-what-happened/
