Kuala Lumpur: With 15 days left before the start of the Tokyo Olympics, Badminton England have got themselves into a really big mess over their selection of World No. 18 Ben Lane/Sean Vendy to play in the Tokyo Olympics instead of World No. 11 Marcus Ellis/Chris Langridge.
BBC reported that Chris Langridge felt he was betrayed by the UK’s badminton governing body.
“Myself and Marcus have been treated like dirt,” said Langridge to BBC Sport.
“All the athletes prepping for the Olympics are now in this hostile, tepid environment where half of us can’t even communicate with one another because the waters are that muddied,” said Ellis.
“I feel so much anger on Chris’ behalf, after everything he’s done for badminton how can he not even be given so much as a ‘how are you doing, can we help in any way?'” added Ellis.
Here’s the link to the full article from BBC.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail – United Kingdom’s highest-circulated daily newspaper, and The Telegraph have also published articles about this incident.
The Daily Mail reported that “Olympic medallist Chris Langridge says he feels he has been stabbed in the back after being ‘deselected’ for Tokyo.”
“They analysed the data the way they wanted it to be analysed,” said Langridge.
“The last six months at the centre, I could feel everything was starting to change. I was considered a spare wheel. I kept my head down and tried to get on with it, but it feels like I’ve been stabbed in the back.”
“It feels like they’ve had me on their hands, gone to the sink, used an abundance of soap and now I’ve gone down the sink and they are pleased.”
“The performance director and head coach have not checked if I am OK. They don’t care. I’ve got a 100 per cent ratio of getting a medal at major events. My c.v. is off the chart.”
“The only reason they’ve got their jobs is because of me and the medals I won. There is no respect at all. I didn’t put myself through those last six months of hell to achieve what I wanted for them to stitch me up at the last.”
Here is the link to the full article from the Daily Mail.
Here is the link to the article published by the Telegraph.
