The Polish veteran has used this time to heal his long-term injuries and is delighted to finally be getting back to full training.
Rogalski flew into everyone’s radar when being the young talent in the Polish golden era. One that famously took silver at the 2010 European Men's Team Championships in Warsaw. In the decade since then, Rogalski has been in eight tournament finals, winning the 2013 Bulgaria Eurasia Open and 2014 Polish International.
However, much of his recent years have been plagued with injury. The strange summer of 2020 went from having the Thomas & Uber Cup and the Tokyo Olympics to one without any badminton. Rogalski shares how he has adapted to this unexpected calendar to turn it in his favour.
- Training during summer was okay, from the beginning of the lockdown I spent my time mostly recovering from past injuries. I played my last match on 9 October 2019 and since that day, I was struggling with injuries and never fully come back on court. But now, I think they are finally okay. I spent a really good two weeks of training at the Centre of Excellence.
Happy I can come to Holbæk
For an experienced professional athlete who has been in the sport for a long time, not being able to play and train as usual can be a very difficult challenge to overcome. Thankfully, for Rogalski, things are looking very promising.
- Honestly, I do not remember when I was able to practice two or three times a day like here. It’s a great feeling but at the moment I am very tired as I also played my first official game in the Danish league this season. This was my first match in the last 11 months where I finished without injury.
It is clear why a step like this for Poland’s number one makes him so happy. Unfortunately, there are no tournaments in near future for him to further test out his form and body, so he will have time to further build up his game and find a rhythm of playing during team matches.
Back in Poland, the national team had their own challenges to deal with due to the lockdown as a few players decided to stop playing at the national setup, as Rogalski explains.
- At the moment we have only two men’s singles players in the team, so it is not a comfortable situation for me. That is why I am very grateful and happy I can come to Holbæk (Centre of Excellence) for training.
He adds this final comment on the talented pool of players in Poland coming through.
- We have a nice group of young players in Poland who worked hard during this period so I expect they will perform very well when finally, tournaments start again.