A meeting among the elite badminton coaches yesterday to map out plans for the Beijing Olympic Games ended abruptly because of the lack of details in the programmes.

And the coaches have been told that they are required to produce comprehensive programmes at next week's joint committee meeting between the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) and the National Sports Council (NSC).

Those who attended the meeting yesterday were chief coach Yap Kim Hock, men's singles coach Misbun Sidek, men's and mixed doubles coach Rexy Mainaky and women's doubles coach Cheah Soon Kit. The meeting was called off after the first two coaches, Misbun and Soon Kit, submitted their papers.

The NSC's director of elite athletes, Ariffin Mohd Ghani, said: “The coaches did come with their plans but they were too general and not what we wanted.

“For example, Misbun said that the plan was for (Lee) Chong Wei to win a gold medal but he did not state how to go about achieving it. Just stating the tournaments he (Chong Wei) will compete in is not enough.

“We are looking at specific programmes for the players and not a general one for a group of players. We want the coaches to do it the same way as Rexy, who is clear on what is required and has given attention to all the pairs under his charge.

“We have briefed all of them again on what we expect from them at the next meeting. If we get it right now, we will have a solid blue print of programmes for our future athletes.”

Ariffin added that the national coaches would have to work together with Kim Hock, physical trainers Sean Sturgess (for doubles players) and Mohd Rosdi Abdul Ghani (singles) and the support team to strengthen their programmes.

The BAM general manager, Kenny Goh, who also attended the meeting yesterday, said that he would meet the coaches individually to help draw up comprehensive programmes.

“I will start to meet them from tomorrow. We will come out with concrete plans.”

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