BAM halt joint training sessions due to strict measures

PETALING JAYA: The joint training sessions between the national and independent shuttlers have been put on hold after the Badminton Association Malaysia’s (BAM) imposed strict Covid-19 preventive measures at the Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM) until Oct 24.

Rio Olympics silver medallists – Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong and Chan Peng SoonGoh Liu Ying – who train twice a week with the national team under the Road to Tokyo programme, will not attend their Wednesday and Saturday sessions for the next two weeks starting yesterday.

The same goes for Liew Daren and Soong Joo Ven, who were hired as sparring players and also train daily with the men’s singles department.

BAM added that the players’ movement will be restricted within the compounds of the ABM and Juara Stadium.

BAM secretary Datuk Kenny Goh said they are not taking any chances as the number of cases have surged to an average of 300-400 a day.

“Basically, we’re just re-enforcing these preventive measures which we had done previously when we first resumed our training (during the conditional movement control order) in June,” said Kenny.

“As our training is centralised-based with players living under one roof, we have to be extra careful.

“At the moment we’re putting this strict

SOPs in place until Oct 24.

“If things get better, we will then review it accordingly.

“So for the time being, independent players will not train with us.

“We’re only allowing the coaches to travel back and forth to ABM but under strict guidelines.”