Tan a pride for Sabah, SBA: Association
Published on: Tuesday, October 14, 2014
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Badminton Association (SBA) is proud that one of its players brought home a medal for the country albeit only a bronze medal from the recent Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.Its President, Janih Bangud, said irrespective of the medal colour, doubles shuttler Tan Wee Kiong made Sabah and Malaysia beaming with pride by winning a medal in badminton at the Games.Enroute to the bronze medal, Tan who partnered with Goh V Shem defeated Japanese doubles pair Kenichi Hayakawa-Hiroyuki Endo 21-16, 21-16 in the men doubles.
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The Malaysian newly-formed pair is currently ranked 187th in the world standing."It is indeed a pride to Sabah and also SBA because Tan Wee Kiong also won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow prior to the Asian Games," he said.And despite the fact that Tan was formerly with Johor Badminton Association (Johor BA) and only formalised his departure from Johor BA just recently in August, it still justify the fact that Tan is now playing under the umbrella of the SBA.Tan and his family actually moved to Tawau, Sabah more than a decade ago in 2001 when his father acquired a huge tract of land there and went into plantation.
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"So, it is a pride for Sabah and the badminton association for his bronze medal achievement at the Asian Games in South Korea recently," said Janih.To this, he expressed hope that Tan's success would set an example to Sabah back-up players and to follow his footsteps.
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Tan's foray into badminton did not come as pure coincidence.The older Tan was apparently very much into the sport and after amassing some fortune in his plantation business, he built a nine-court badminton hall in Tawau and named it as the Tawau Badminton Academy.He even hired an Indonesian badminton coach to train the shuttlers under the academy. But Wee Kiong's interest in the sport was nurtured when he was still in Johor.He is now in the national elite badminton team under the Badminton Association of Malaysia.Badminton also runs deep in his family.His younger brother, Tan Wee Tat, was BAM's former national back-up player.Wee Tat has won the Men Doubles and Mixed Doubles of the Sabah Closed Championship last year.He is now active in coaching and training at the Tawau Badminton Academy.Wee Kiong's other younger brother, Tan Wee Gieen, once won the singles event in the Under-16 Sabah-Sarawak Youth National Circuit. He is now a national-back-up player under BAM.Wee Kiong's youngest sibling, 13-year-old sister, Tan Yun Ying, is a class in her own right.She once won the singles and women doubles events in the Sabah Youth Under-12 tournament.On other developments, Janih said, the SBA is concerned with the badminton sport development in Sabah.According to him, the SBA has been very active with the development programme since 2011 and named it as Rural Development Programme."Six districts were chosen under this programme and given financial aid and also technical coaching aid with an aim to produce new badminton talents from rural areas for national and international levels," he said.Last year, he said, the programme was extended to 10 districts and starting June this year, the programme is now available in 25 districts that has affiliate badminton associations with the SBA.He said the programme now is known as District Development Programme.Nevertheless, he said that due to logistics concern, Sabah badminton players get less exposure playing in high-level tournaments compared to their counterparts in the peninsula where almost every weekend there would be one or two championships being held."But that did not deter us from sending our players to take part in national and also international championships. We want to provide as much exposure to all the players," he said.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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