| Fadhil Yunus |
JAPAN Para Badminton Team head coach Kita Tsutomu has stressed the importance of starting training in badminton at a young age and the necessity of a well-thought-out plan.
Kita, who is in the country to spearhead a delegation from the Japan Para Badminton team, said junior players in Brunei Darussalam will gain valuable experience by playing with senior members of the national team.
“I saw under-15 players and if they play with the senior players, they will get a lot of experience from them,” said Kita, who was Japan’s national coach for the 2004 Olympics.
The head coach shared Japan’s practises of promoting the growth of junior players where the winner of an under-10 tournament will be monitored and then selected for training to further their development.
Typically, the background of a junior high school player begins in one of the many clubs in Japan and if they best players their age, they will steadily progress into another team which serves as a platform for the international arena.
Kita, whose itinerary in the Sultanate included a visit to the Brunei para-badminton team at the Youth Centre on Tuesday, added that the ideal preparation for a player to be ready to compete at the Olympics is to formulate a four-year plan.
In the case of Japan, Kita explained that it takes six to eight years to prepare a badminton athlete to reach the top eight players of the Tokyo Olympics.
Illustrating success stories in the transition from a promising talent to world beaters, he cited Japan’s current Olympic women doubles’ champions Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi as an example who came through the ranks as junior high school tournament winners.
Asked which notable players that the head coach has been influential towards their entry in a major event, Kita replied that his company Sanyo Company Limited Japan played a role in Japanese shuttler Takako Ida’s appearance in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
The head coach could count Kaori Mori, Seiko Yamada, Chikako Nakayama and Miho Tanaka in the 2004 Athens Olympics as players that have been selected through such a system.
The list expanded to singles’ player Eriko Hirose, Kumiko Ogura and Reiko Shiota – who came to Brunei Darussalam in 2010 – who all played at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Kita also revealed the likely line-up of the men’s doubles in the Tokyo Olympics with the Japanese pairing of experienced player 31-year-old Hiroyuki Endo and a new partner who is 10 years his junior, which is a part of new changes made in the ranking system.