Tough day for Dutch Players

After the number of problems that Badminton Nederland has faced these past few years, another black day for the Dutch on March 19th. The cut in the budget allocated left no choice for the Dutch federation but to axe a lot of players from the national squad and concentrate on only a few members. The list of players sent home was announced in a press release today.

Here are the names which are part of the Olympic program for 2016 – obviously focusing on mixed and women’s doubles.

Jacco Arends
Samantha Barning
Ruud Bosch
Jelle Maas
Gayle Mahulette
Jim Middelburg
Eefje Muskens
Selena Piek
Jorrit de Ruiter
Iris Tabeling
Soraya de Visch Eijbergen

This means that players like Koen Ridder, Nick Fransman, Patty Stolzenbach, Josephine Wentholt, Ilse Vaessen have been taken out of the program while others like Paulien van Dooremalen and Dave Khodabux had already decided to leave the national team beforehand. For Eric Pang, the best men’s singles from the Netherlands, things will be decided at a later time, as he may still join the team.

“Tuesday March 19th, a very very tough day for Badminton Nederland as they were forced to make a new and reduced squad. Our association made an important choice: they want a focus on certain disciplines. Those disciplines are mixed and ladies’ doubles. Based on the current level of players and a little history as well (in which disciplines were we performing well in the past) they made their choice! I am glad my association told me today that they have faith in me and that they want to continue. It may be clear I will do my utmost to prove they are right! The players who are part of the team are all very committed and together with the staff we have to give every single part of ourselves to get world class results in the coming years!” wrote Jorrit de Ruiter on his Facebook wall.