It's all systems go as the 2020 Badminton Asia Manila Team Championships take place from February 11-16 at the historic Rizal Memorial Stadium.
Badminton Asia and the Philippine Badminton Association have taken all measures to ensure the safety of the players participating in the tournament in the light of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak.
“We can assure to the players and the Filipino people that their safety is put on a premium to ensure the world-class staging of this event,” said PBA secretary-general Christopher Quimpo.
The non-postponement of the event is a sign that the organizers have taken precautionary measures to address the situation.
“The world’s best badminton players have been vocal in saying that they are ready to put on a show come the Asian Team Championships — and this includes our national team who has been training hard for the past few months for this event,” added Quimpo about this tournament backed by SMART Communications Inc., MVP Sports Foundation, Leisure and Resorts World Corporation, Cignal, and TV5.
Both teams from China and Hong Kong and the women’s team of India though will not participate in the biennial meet.
With this, a redraw of the groupings will be held on Monday, February 10 during the coaches’ meeting at Century Park Hotel in Manila.
Originally, China and Hong Kong were in Group B in the men’s division, together with Thailand. Hong Kong was in Group W of the women’s division with Malaysia and Japan while India was slotted with Korea and Kazakhstan in Group X.
China finished in second place in both the men’s and women’s divisions of the tournament in 2018.