{"id":393099,"date":"2023-06-05T06:02:04","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T20:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=393099"},"modified":"2023-06-05T06:02:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T20:02:04","slug":"cnmi-badminton-players-go-thru-developmental-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cnmi-badminton-players-go-thru-developmental-program\/","title":{"rendered":"CNMI badminton players go thru developmental program\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Robbie Thackham, Coaching and Development manager for Badminton Oceania, far right, Australian badminton player, Jacob Schueler, far left, and Australian badminton player, Louisa Ma, fifth from right, pose for a photo before they hold the developmental program for the CNMI\u2019s senior badminton players last Friday at the TSL Complex.(LEIGH GASES)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Robbie Thackham, Coaching and Development manager for Badminton Oceania, and Australian badminton players Jacob Schueler and Louisa Ma held a developmental program for NMI juniors and senior players last Friday and Saturday at the TSL Complex.<\/p>\n

About 24 junior players between 12 and 19 years old and 12 senior players had the chance to learn new skills and upgrade their game during the program.<\/p>\n

The training focused on a lot of technical skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these players are quite new, so it\u2019s just evaluating where they and are doing a little bit of work with them, because we\u2019re not here for that long, but then working with the Northern Marianas coaches to then keep working on progressions for them to help develop them further,\u201d said Thackham.
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<\/a>
Australian badminton player, Jacob Schueler, left, and Coaching and Development Manager for Badminton Oceania, Robbie Thackham, in black, show CNMI senior players some footwork drills last Friday at the TSL Sports Complex.(LEIGH GASES)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

The key thing they worked on is footwork and movement, said Thackham. \u201cMaking sure they start to move correctly, and then the technical skills with their racket\u2014putting them in groups and just changing what they\u2019re doing on court a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey pick things up quite fast, they\u2019re willing to change and try something different,\u201d said Thackham on the NMI players\u2019 level of play. \u201cI think that they just probably haven\u2019t had as much training as a lot of the other countries. That will come with time but they\u2019re quite positive and willing to try new things and make changes,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schueler agreed and said, \u201cThey\u2019re keen to learn and try and work hard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schueler and Ma both assisted Theckham with coaching and Theckham said they\u2019re good role models for the participants in the program.<\/p>\n

Thackham thanked the Northern Marianas Badminton Association for giving them the opportunity to coach NMI players. \u201cIt\u2019s good of them to do that. It makes a big difference to give these guys opportunities,\u201d he said. They also thanked the Tan Siu Lin Foundation for supporting the program and for the accommodations.<\/p>\n

Ma, who will be playing in the tournament, said \u201cthe weather\u2019s very different. It\u2019s winter in Australia and the weather in Melbourne\u2019s really cold, so coming here is a big change. So, I\u2019m still adjusting to that. And we haven\u2019t seen the tournament hall yet, so it\u2019ll be good to see what that is like and the conditions might be a little different there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schueler, for his part, said that he\u2019s ready. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to playing. They got some top players from Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, so we\u2019ll see how we go against them, and just looking forward to playing on the international circuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Ma and Schueler said they are looking forward to watching Kevin Cordon, a Guatemalan player, play as he had a very good run in the last Olympics.<\/p>\n

The NMI is hosting back-to-back 2024 Paris Olympic Games qualifying tournaments starting tomorrow, Tuesday, June 6. The qualifying round games will run from 3pm to 4pm, while main draw games will follow suit and take place until 9pm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s action will be from 10am to 9pm; Thursday\u2019s games are from 12pm to 9pm; and Friday is from 1pm to 9pm. Semis matches on Saturday will be from 1pm to 9pm, while finals in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s singles and men\u2019s, women\u2019s, and mixed doubles are slated for Sunday, June 11, from 12pm to 5pm. The same schedule will be in effect for the Saipan International 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robbie Thackham, Coaching and Development manager for Badminton Oceania, and Australian badminton players Jacob Schueler…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":393091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-393099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}