BWF Secretary General hails healthy development of badminton

The current development of badminton is "very healthy", said Badminton World Federation (BWF) Secretary General Thomas Lund here on Thursday.

Lund, who attended a BWF partnership launch with China's Xiamen Airlines, believes that the development of badminton today is in a very healthy process, because there is a very good spread in the world and the countries and regions that are taking medals increase.

"No doubt china is the strongest right now in the world, but we see a lot of emerging countries and regions coming up," said Lund. "Recently we've seen Spain coming up, winning the world championships, and India which comes very strong to world scene, and we see Thailand, and traditional countries, Indonesia, and Malaysia."

Lund expressed his hope that China maintain its dominance in the sport, but others are taking up challenges to China.

He refused to comment on Lee Chong Wei's drug offence, on the ground that they did not know exactly what happened in an ongoing case.

"But it's clear that any case involving doping offences is very serious, and we obviously hope that the players will see this as something that they should not totally get close to," he added.

He said this was a high-profile case, which had brought out warning to all players in the world to be cautious, as they always should be. Endit