It’s Me, Badminton, and The 90’s

The very first Indonesia Raya in the Olympic

A friend of mine, Fakhrul likes to talk about all the good things of the 90’s to the level that can make someone feel annoyed. I mean, deadly annoyed. If you happen to listen to him explaining about this stuff, you can only ask him to stop. His favorite parts? All the cartoons and kids movies broadcasted every Sunday. He will tell you that the kids of the 90’s were much happier than today’s kids. Debatable. Oh yeah, he loves the popular Tak-Tik Boom too. But hey, I won’t say I don’t miss the 90’s. I miss the music. I miss the life. I miss Soeharto. But most of all I miss the badminton.

I’m longing for that days, that good old days. Back in the 90’s badminton was everyone’s prima donna. And it wasn’t difficult to find out why. The sport was the pride of the nation. Badminton always gave people reason to cheer. Our players seemed to be destined to win titles available in the game. Week to week, our players won one title after another. Life was easy. Names like Hariyanto Arbi, Joko Suprianto, Ricky Subagya, Rexy Mainaky, and Susi Susanti became household. The class of ‘94 then gave us the historic double, winning both the Thomas and Uber Cup in Jakarta for the very first time. I can remember precisely how jovial I was when the 14-year prodigy Mia Audina beat Zhang Ning in a 3-set matches. We were on the top of the world. It was like it wasn’t a day if people hadn’t talked about badminton.

Fast forward to 2009, that old days sadly have long gone. We’re no longer badminton strongest powerhouse. The latest edition of Indonesia Open showed us the bleak picture of the country’s badminton. For the very first time ever, we couldn’t win any single title in front of our home crowd. Yes, we won nothing while only sending a player (one which doesn’t train in Cipayung anymore) in the final. It sucks. It hurts.

The writing of this post made me check out again some badminton-related data in the last 3 years since the inauguration of the BWF Super Series since 2007 season. And obviously, this year will be our worst. In 2007 Indonesia was ranked 3rd overall (with 8 titles), just trailing behind Malaysia with the same number of titles and China with 38. Last year, we still got better, ranked 2nd overall with 10 titles behind China with 27. But this year, we are no better than countries like Chinese Taipei, England, India, and Hong Kong with only 1 title (ranked 5th overall). Other badminton powerhouse have managed to get more, Denmark and Korea (both with 4), Malaysia with 5, and of course China with 12. Even in a day when China is as dominant as they were 3 or 4 years ago, we’re still struggling. I’m not a badminton expert or analyst to criticize and tell the PBSI what to do, but definitely there still many things the organization has to work on to make us competitive again in the world stage.

I know it’s hard to chew. Looking at the current state of our badminton, things can only get worse. You have to get used to other title-less championships. Starting from the moment you read this post, don’t open your paper sport-page. You’ll just ruin your day. Wish I had Doraemon’s time machine and I’d travel back to 90’s and enjoy it second by second