Youth and sports minister YB Khairy Jamaluddin has called for everyone to respect our star athletes’ decisions to retire; should they want to. YB Khairy was referring to our badminton ace, Dato’ Lee Chong Wei and squash queen, Dato’ Nicol Ann David.
Dato’ Lee Chong Wei is currently preparing for the 2017 BWF World Championships this August 21. Should he decide to retire after that, the sports minister said that he is free to do so and no one should get in his way.
As for Nicol David, she has decided to still be in action for the next four to five years. She had just successfully eased into the second round of Tournaments of Champions (TOC), happening in New York from January 12 until January 19.
Even if Lee Chong Wei chooses not to retire, YB Khairy has asserted that it doesn’t solve all our problems. According to him, it’s important not to put all our eggs in one basket.
Instead, we should direct our focus towards developing young and budding badminton players.
“We still have young players like Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin and Zulfadli Zulkifili. We can groom them for the international stage.” the minister said at a press conference at the Anti-Doping Awareness campaign organised by the Olympic Council of Malaysia.
“Anyway, I’ve spoken to both Chong Wei and Nicol, and I told them they have our full support. If they want to keep going, they can, if they want to retire, they can too.”
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