Development

Jakub Bitman about his stay in Odense
Date: 7/29/2013 3:05 PM
Published by : Manuel Røsler

Badminton Europe is creating links with the National Training Centres of excellence within the Member Associations. The idea is to certificate those centres that have the required standard and to cooperate on offering training for talented players from other Member Associations by awarding scholarships. Badminton Europe has confirmed eight Certificated Training Centres all around Europe.

Czech players Jakub Bitman (pictured left) and Alžběta Bášová (pictured right) got a Scholarship to practise at the Certificated Training Centre in Odense, Denmark. Here you can read the report about Bitman's stay in the Southern part of Denmark.

Jakub Bitman: "I really enjoyed my time in Odense"

My stay in Odense started on Saturday, 13th of July. I and my mixed doubles partner Alžběta Bášová took the flight to Copenhagen where we had to deal with the probably only single problem during our stay. The employers of the airport were on a strike and the baggage reclaim hall was literally overcrowded. We spent there almost three hours waiting until we got our bags and to make it even worse we missed our train to Odense by just two minutes. But as I said, that was probably the only problem.

On the train station the head coach of the Odense training centre Lennart Engler (pictured in the middle) picked us up and on the way to our apartment he had shown us all the important things such as supermarket, how to get to the hall etc. I really liked that we lived only five minutes walking from both the hall and city centre. 

The first training opportunity was already on Sunday morning and I decided to go no matter how tired I was after the trip to Denmark. I was surprised by the fact how many players were in the hall and from the very beginning I was enjoying the training. In the morning we did some flat game exercises, 3 vs 2 and 2 vs 2 games with a lot different kind of restrictions and the evening training was mostly focused on speed and 2 vs 1 games.

Throughout the two weeks I was there, the trainings were more or less the same. We started with 20mins individual warming up, followed by 10mins of mini-games such as quarter court matches, English doubles, etc. I liked this pretty a lot also because nobody wanted to lose no matter what the game was. After this, we did some exercises focused mainly on doubles and mixed doubles, such as flat game, net skills, power smashes and rotation of two partners on court. Usually it was two to three different ones and we did three rounds of 60-120seconds each. Last twenty minutes of the training we spent by playing 3v2 matches, 2v2 with restrictions or normal matches. For me this is very important and useful because I can't play so many different players with such a high quality.

The most challenging sessions were when we did the multifeeding part. 45mins of intensive hard work and I was done. The speed I had to work at and very short breaks have made it really difficult. 

All in all I enjoyed every single session in Odense and hopefully I will come back later this year or the season. I would also like to say many thanks to Badminton Europe for making my stay in Odense possible.

Go to our Development page to find out more about the Certificated Training Centre of Badminton Europe.

If you are an international player and are interested in receiving a Scholarship please contact your Member Association. Read about the criteria to apply for a Scholarship here.

©badmintoneurope.com. All rights reserved.

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