KUALA LUMPUR: National coaching director Rexy Mainaky has confirmed that Indonesian Mulyo Handoyo and Dane Kenneth Jonassen are being considered for BAM men's singles head coach job.
Rexy said the BAM management will make a final decision, and if everything goes smoothly, the new coach will begin his work as early as next month.
BAM, eyeing Olympic gold at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, has been looking for a coach that has produced an Olympic champion.
Mulyo guided his compatriot, Taufik Hidayat, to the Olympic men's singles gold in Athens 2004 and the world title in Anaheim in 2005 besides numerous other major titles.
Jonassen, who announced recently that he would not seek a contract extension as Denmark's head coach, has been instrumental in turning Viktor Axelsen into an Olympic champion in 2021 Tokyo, apart from helping his countryman win the 2017 world title.
Besides Axelsen who also defended his Olympic gold in Paris in August, Jonassen has also been responsible for producing top shuttlers like current world No. 3 Anders Antonsen and Rasmus Gemke (No. 28).
Rexy said the immediate goal for the new coach will be to help the BAM players close the gap with independent shuttler and World No. 5 Lee Zii Jia.
"I have given the names of several candidates to the BAM management to finalise where Mulyo and Jonassen are also under consideration," said Rexy today.
"We have Zii Jia at the top level and the objective of the new head coach is to help our singles shuttlers close the gap with him.
"For instance, we can win two doubles at the Thomas Cup but we will still end up losing a tie if we lose the singles where we need three strong singles players.
"So, we need to have three to four players as strong back-up if we want to do well in the Thomas Cup where we can also depend on the singles like the doubles.
"We are hoping that the new coach can start on Nov 1 and at the latest on Dec 1 as we need to start our long term programme as soon as possible.
"Our key performance indicator is for the head coach of all departments to have at least one player or a pair qualifying for the 2028 LA Games."
Besides scripting the success of Taufik, the vastly experienced Mulyo also had a fruitful stint in India for a year in 2017 where players like H. S. Prannoy, K. Srikanth and Paris Olympics semi-finalist Lakshya Sen rose to prominence.
Mulyo resigned as India's singles coach in February, 2018 and moved to Singapore. Under him, Singapore's Loh Kean Yew won the world title in Huelva, Spain in 2021.
Mulyo is said to be currently based in Indonesia and not attached to any coaching job, and this could make it easier for him to accept a BAM offer.
Rexy also revealed that under the new deal, all BAM coaches are set to receive a four-year contract until the LA 2028 Olympics unlike the previous practice of two-year contracts.
BAM has already named K. Yogendran and Alvin Chew as the assistant men's singles coaches.