“Fantastic” Games in Tokyo include para badminton debut but COVID protocols here to stay for awhile, says badminton secretary-general

Around the Rings spoke with BWF Secretary General a few days before the end of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics on Sept. 4. He sounded tired but pleased with results from the Olympics, where badminton fielded 172 players and from the Paralympics, where para badminton debuted with 90 players. Here are his answers to our questions, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

ATR: Para badminton made its debut in Tokyo. What does that mean to the sport and the Paralympics?

Thomas Lund: It means a lot to be on the Paralympic program. I guess it’s very much a three-dimensional effect … first of all it means a lot for the athletes, to players. And no doubt it will create enhanced attention in their own countries, from their National Paralympic Committees, and supporters. This will obviously help them in the day to day to develop as Para badminton athletes and to be able to do it with more financial support, more tournaments

So overall a really good effect, I’m sure. It will help recruit more athletes. And that will help the BWF in terms of setting up more tournaments. Being on the Paralympic program definitely creates recognition of Para badminton as a sport that will help get more organizers, more hosts, that in turn will get more tournaments for the players which are two really important things.

Then thirdly, there’s a dimension where going forward – being on the program is a great window of health of promotion for Para badminton and that will help recruit both, more players into elite Para badminton but also in the longer term, create more development at the grassroot level with more Para badminton athletes taking up Para badminton instead of other sports.

ATR: What are the challenges leading up to Tokyo 2020 as a result of the pandemic? And particularly on the players?

TL: In 2020 we saw the effects of both the Olympics and Paralympic Games having to be postponed. That was obviously a huge disappointment for the athletes. We did also miss one of our qualification tournaments in 2020, but we managed to get that Spanish Para badminton International 2021 up and going in Spain in 2021 so we actually completed the whole qualification – the whole qualification process that we had outlined from the beginning.

But obviously there was a lots of disruption in 2020 and 21. There has been a lack of tournaments compared to normal within Para badminton.

So that has obviously been a difficult time for the athletes, but then on the other hand I also know the athletes have done some really good preparing, training for the Paralympics, so I look forward to seeing them play here in Tokyo over the next few days.

ATR: How did Tokyo 2020 go? Did it meet your expectations? Was it as challenging as you feared? Or less?

TL: I mean, clearly 2020 - 2021 has been extremely challenging. Not only in an Olympic context, Paralympic context, but in the context of just driving sport, ensuring that the sport continues at a high level during these very challenging times.

When you look at the Olympics, I think we had a fantastic Olympics, under the circumstances.

No doubt it would have been fantastic to have spectators in the venues. That probably would have given it the last edge of what we normally see, but overall fantastic venues, fantastic setup, a lot of fantastic badminton was played during the Olympics. We had great champions, gold medalists on the podium. I think, even though it was under very special circumstances, it meant a lot to the players. It showed when they played, both before, during and after … and I think that absolutely transformed through to the audience behind the screens, because it was very much shared with fans around the world –and streaming through the rights-holders.

But I think also everybody could feel a very special Olympic Games, although under very challenging circumstances. Our team has been working tirelessly to get these Games together and delivered in a safe way for everybody and a lot of attention had to go into that. But still keeping a high focus on the sport. It’s been busy, it’s been challenging, but I think we got a really fantastic result.

ATR: What are the challenges ahead for BWF?

TL: Every week, every month, every quarter we look ahead and we do see some light at the end of the tunnel. We are going to be challenged by the pandemic for awhile yet. Both in 2021 and into 2022, no doubt about it.

We have had some reorganization of the calendar happening over these weeks and months, and it means that we re-organized the calendar in 2021 to what we think is a more feasible program that has a greater likelihood of being delivered. Which means that we are delivering more tournaments in Europe, that’s where it seems to be opening up slightly more than other parts of the world.

We’re delivering a range of tournaments in Europe – from the major championships like the TotalEnergies Surdirman Cup and the TotalEnergies Thomas and Uber Cup will be played in September and October, followed by other World Tour tournaments. Then we have what we call a “green bubble’ tournament in Indonesia, Bali, followed by the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals, culminating in the TotalEnergies World Championships in Huelva, Spain.

So that’s a very busy program for us and for the players. We hope to look into 2022 with slightly more normality, but with a program will be set up with a high level of feasibility of how we deliver tournaments and tournament programs. That is information we can share within hopefully the end of next month.

ATR: Will the tournament still be held under the COVID guidelines and restrictions?

TL: Unfortunately I’m sure the pandemic will keep on challenging us and the way we do tournaments for quite awhile; the control of the pandemic in parts of the world, especially different approaches also. Difficult to say what is right or wrong here, but you can see that different countries have different ways of doing it that creates different challenges to how we can conduct tournaments. . We will have event protocols throughout 2021, but when we go into 2022 we can slowly start adapting it to less restrictions a bit more back to normality, whatever that is.

But I’m sure we’ll all get back to the new normal, hopefully at some point we will get there, but for sure 2022, good part of 2022 will be expected to be a different normal from what we’re used to, still with some protocols in place, especially when you look at countries that haven’t quite reached the vaccination rate, like other countries. A range of Asian countries that usually host a range of tournaments has been closed down over long period of time, but hopefully we can see these countries opening up in 2022 to play more tournaments.

ATR: Badminton Europe did a deal with Sportradar Integrity Services aimed at preventing match-fixing. How much of an issue is it for badminton worldwide? Any new cases?

TL: Clearly the Integrity Sport Services in 2022 is pretty straightforward.

Such monitoring set ups have been in place for many years now. This goes on in many countries around the world in registered companies doing it in a fully open and transparent way, but (it) clearly needs to be monitored in a way that we don’t have players cheating. We have unfortunately seen players but also influencers from outside trying to create match manipulation.

It has a lot to do with education, as well – simply to make them aware that this can only do harm to themselves and the sport if they try to earn a quick buck by cheating, or creating a match-fixing opportunity for themselves. This is obviously serious and something we will have to look out for … and other things that create risk for the integrity of our sport.

We have an integrity unit internally. We have three people working there on a daily basis plus support staff and external experience, and a process to make sure we are as free from match-manipulation/anti-doping as possible in badminton.

We haven’t had many cases, but we have had cases. So we can - as other sports say - this cannot happen, and we are therefore serious about looking into this, educating the athletes, if the athletes don’t do anything illegal, there’s not a problem. Unfortunately (we) had two or three athletes trying their luck and luckily we’ve been able to stamp it out.