Indian badminton player Kidambi Srikanth has hired Indonesia’s Wiempie Mahardi as a personal trainer to prepare in the best possible manner ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The shuttler has not been in the best of form and had to recently participate in the selection trials for the Asian Games as he has slipped out of the top 20 rankings.
The Indian men's team is without a foreign coach since Indonesia's Agus Dwi Santoso left in December 2021. Srikanth hopes that Mahardi will help him get back to his best as he had previously found success in his career under Indonesian coaches.
Training under Santoso, he became the first Indian men’s singles player to reach the final of the world championships in 2021. And in 2017, Srikanth won four BWF titles, that too under the guidance of an Indonesian coach Mulyo Handoyo.
What did Kidambi Srikanth say about Wiempie Mahardi?
"I was trying to get a coach through TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme) but somehow, it didn't work out…so I decided to do it myself. I met him when I went to Indonesia to train for three weeks. He came to India in the last week of April," he stated to PTI.
However, he is yet to train with his new coach.
"I couldn't train with him because after I came back fromthe Asia Badminton championships, I didn't have any time. I had just two days before the trials and two days after the trials. After the upcoming Asian events, I hope to get some time to train with him," he added.
Who is Wiempie Mahardi?
Mahardi is a former Indonesian shuttler who has more than 10 years of coaching at various clubs.
He had represented Indonesia and Singapore during his playing career.
The 42-year-old was part of the Indonesian team that won the boys' 1999 Asian Junior Badminton Championships.
In 2001, he reached the finals of the Indonesia Jakarta International.
His previous stint was at the PB Jaya Raya Sports Club in Indonesia.
