Badminton Europe’s “Centre of Excellence” (CoE) is back to work after the Christmas break. The players have started with the build-up phase as soon as they arrived back to Holbaek three weeks ago. CoE assistant coach Kestutis Navickas talked to us about the current mood and the situation at the Centre.
-The motivation is always really high at the CoE. When the players just came back after holidays the mood was good. But we have started a build-up phase and the good mood went to tired mood. Feels like after the holidays all the small details we have been working on for a while started working better. It may have something to do with the mental rest that they had over the break.
Navickas told us that the Centre is back to the rhythm and continues working towards the full potential. There have been several mens’ singles players joining in the practices and Badminton Europe has organized a women’s singles camp this week.
Olympic year it is!
With only a few months left until the end of the Olympic qualification period, the players’ goal is to play at their best level in the tournaments in February and March.
-It’s almost the last step for the players to qualify for the Olympics. We want to have as many players as possible to qualify and after that, to have the best possible preparation for the Games, Navickas told Badminton Europe.
Last week, Navickas and several players from the CoE were at the Swedish Open. Overall, the tournament showed where the level is right now and that will help the coaches to adjust the preparation for the coming weeks.
-I think the coach cannot be fully satisfied when you are going with many players of different levels. Some players really showed their best badminton ever, some of them underperformed. On the other hand, we are in a build-up phase the last couple of weeks, said Navickas.
Felix Burestedt became a runner-up at his home tournament, having to pull out of his final match because of a very bad blister.
-Felix showed his maturity and even in build-up phase managed to play some solid badminton. He is already back to practice and will continue to progress to our performance phase.