2024-08-01 13:13:42
The head coach of the national badminton team, Petya Nedelcheva, is satisfied with the fifth place of Gabriela Stoeva and Stephanie Stoeva at the Olympics in Paris.
Our girls crashed out in the quarterfinals this morning after losing in two games to world champions and circuit leaders Qingchen Chen and Yifan Jia (China).
“Today you could see that the Chinese girls were much more experienced than us, they completely controlled the match. We tried to play tactically with the older of the pair (Yifang Jia), but somehow the girls did not manage to work together from the very beginning of the match The match did not go well for us.
They tried after the first half of the first game to catch up in the score, but it didn’t work out. In the second game, we played on the better court, I thought they would take advantage of this situation, but the game just didn’t go well,” commented Nedelcheva, who is also the personal trainer of Stefani and Gabriela Stoevi.
She is happy with the accomplished goal of ranking in the top 8 of the Olympic tournament.
“We absolutely fulfilled our goal of entering the eight. This was the task we had set for ourselves in Bulgaria after the groups came out. The success for us is very great,” said Nedelcheva.
She already has fifth places at the Olympics as a competitor from Athens 2004 and now as a coach in Paris.
“This fifth place is a repeat of the success from 20 years ago. Both are sweet because badminton is an Asian sport and to be in the top 5 at the Olympics is a very big success for us. The girls are already appreciating it and I hope the future will surpass these our successes,” said Nedelcheva.