The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : A useful training stint

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Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009
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A useful training stint

BANGALORE: The Bangalore experience is proving to be very beneficial to the Belgian badminton squad which is training at Tata Padukone Badminton Academy here.

The Scottish born coach, Alan McLain, said, “we are here for the World championship at Hyderabad and our two week training in Bangalore should help us immensely for the event.”

The Belgian team consists of Wouten Claes, Fred Mawet, Nathalie Descamps, Steffi Annys and Severine Coruilian. Though they hardly figure in the world rankings in a big way, Claes has good experience in doubles at international level, while Nathalie was a former top-30 women player.

“We are impressed with the facilities here and a big plus point of our training is we get top notch Indian players to practice with. Lack of good sparring partners has been our problem back home,” said the coach. The accent of training for the Belgians had been on court drills and fine tuning of strokes.

The game doesn’t rate high in terms of popularity in Belgium, but there are many expatriate players particularly from countries like China and Indonesia, whose skills have caught the fancy of the public.

With little or no government support, the sport remains more of a hobby. But things of late have been improving, said McLain. He added, “there is a lot we can take back home from here and we are enjoying our stay and training.” — Special Correspondent

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