Turns out it’s the criticism that’s been humiliating for badminton.
Barbados Badminton Association president Kevin Wood is describing the assessment of his team’s performance at the Commonwealth Games as rather “unfortunate”, saying the Barbados Olympic Association (BOA) approved the squad’s selection yet didn’t set goals for the team for the Games.
The sentiments came in response to comments made by Steve Stoute which, according to Wood, left several of his players feeling discouraged after the BOA boss questioned the team’s showing in Glasgow.
“I think it’s time the BOA needs to look at this thing holistically and then tell us and the public what are their goals when it comes to these games because is it about just getting medals or seeing athletes achieve personal bests while giving of their best?” asked Wood.
“We don’t have national selection criteria, so we met with the BOA and they agreed to a certain set of criteria for these games which would suggest they are okay with the team, but when the athletes can see some of these write-ups they get deterred because they know what they have to go through.
“So I think the comments are a tad unfortunate and seem to be targeting the smaller sports that don’t have professional players to lean on, because when we leave Barbados to rep, we are behind the eight ball, as we all have day jobs and then have to compete against overseas-based pros,” he added.
Wood was defending his four-member team that came in for a bit of criticism in an article in which Stoute said the sport and local table tennis needed to review “their strategy with a view to giving younger players an opportunity”, while referring to cycling as embarrassing.
However, Wood contends that the young and upcoming Bradley Pilgrim was slated to make the trip to Scotland before he ruptured his Achilles tendon just before the Commonwealth Games. It was agreed that Andre Padmore would be used as his replacement, while Shari Watson and Mariama Eastmond both met the qualifying criteria set forth by placing at Nationals, Miami Open and Suriname Open.
And the team performed credibly by Wood’s account, with Watson and Dakeil Thorpe advancing out of their respective first-round singles draws via rather comfortable wins. The mixed pairs of Thorpe and Eastmond, and Watson and Padmore had opening round wins over Jamaica and Guernsey, respectively.
“It’s really all in the luck of the draw, so for us we don’t know what we will come up against until we get there, so it’s just about being competitive against the big international countries,” said Wood of his team’s goals.
“It’s unfortunate that we were drawn in a group with world powers like Malaysia, who ended up winning it all. But if we run up against our regional counterparts like Jamaica then we beat them, it’s as simple as that.
“People just must understand we can’t medal at this level because we’re coming up against some of the world’s best here with professional players, but it’s a chance for us to test our skills against them so instead we look to medal at CAC and Pan Am Championships,” he added.
Wood went on to call for the BOA to acquire the Wildey Gymnasium and run the facility so players of Barbados’ indoor sports would still be able to train during Crop Over.
