Badminton Europe’s “Centre of Excellence” has new players joining in the trainings in the facilities in Holbaek, Denmark. Filip Spoljarec (Croatia) and Louisa Ma (Australia) are two of the new players at the CoE. Filip has been staying in Holbaek for two weeks, whereas Louisa has been training since October. They both talked to Badminton Europe about their experience at the CoE.
The two weeks of practice for Filip finished with good impressions towards the training environment. He mentioned the fact that the players can easily focus only on training and recovery, adding:
- There are a lot of good players in the Centre so the sparing is very good and always a little bit different. The coaches are pushing the players and giving good feedback. The facilities are great.
Talking about the differences comparing his trainings back in Croatia and the CoE, Filip mentioned the lack of sparing:
-We don’t have a big group of very good players like there is in the CoE, so it’s more difficult to improve your level. Also our facilities are not as good as they are in the CoE.
-I would like to thank Badminton Europe for giving me the opportunity to practice in the CoE, and all the coaches and players for the great two weeks in Holbaek, I hope to come again.
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Australia’s Louisa Ma has been training at the Centre in between tournaments. It has been easier for her to travel to international tournaments from Denmark and according to her:
-It is incredibly more economical traveling to tournaments in Europe, both financially and time wise. It has also allowed me to play more tournaments without fatiguing as quickly. There are little or no time differences, travel times are short and more training can be fit in in between tournaments.
Louisa highlights the variety of sparring, the high quality of trainings and facilities at the Centre.
-The players live at the Centre which eliminates the travel to and from training. There are also many compared with training in Australia. As Australia is quite large country, it is rare for everyone to congregate and train together. Having so many different players to train with has provided a great variety of sparring and exposure to different skills and game styles.