Lars Uhre: ‘We’re Not So Concerned About Junior Results’

Lars Uhre: ‘We’re Not So Concerned About Junior Results’

Lars Uhre, who won several accolades for Denmark as the team’s head coach from 2010 to 2016, has been in charge of Badminton Denmark’s talent development since May 2021. Uhre was in Santander for the BWF World Junior Championships 2022 and talks about his ideas and experiences in working with young talent.

Part 1 of a two-part interview.

You are known for your work with the senior team… so what’s it like working with juniors?

Oh, it’s I love it. It’s very interesting. It’s nice to be able to bring the experience of having worked with the seniors, because then, I have some knowledge about what’s okay, and what has to be different. It’s very nice to work with the juniors because they’re learning so fast and it’s a privilege, I think.

Is it a lot more work compared to the seniors, because they are unfinished products in a sense?

It’s different. But you’re right, you have to be a little bit more aware of what’s going on because the seniors are sort of educated and here you have to teach them a little bit more.

Lars Uhre at the BWF World Junior Championships.

Junior players are at an age when they’ve got many other distractions as well. So is that also a big challenge for you to get them to focus on badminton?

Yeah, it is. And there are heaps of challenges, like one is, of course the dual career that we want them to have, an education, and then all the challenges from social media and gaming, and there’s a lot of very interesting other things, also their social life that can distract them. There are also good options and very interesting for young people today. Whereas when we were young, there were also distractions, but they were more limited.

Talking of social media, do you see it as a threat to their focus and performance because of how widespread it is?

It is a threat, but it’s also an opportunity. It’s easier to get a brand as a player today than it used to be, because 20 years ago, no one knew there was a World Junior Championships going on. Whereas now they know what happened half an hour ago. So there are pros and cons, the thing we have to help them is to navigate in it, and also when you go online and you post all the good things, then you also have to be prepared that some people might react to that.

Uhre was head coach during Denmark’s Rio 2016 campaign.

When you look at the junior badminton scene in Denmark, are you encouraged? Or are there concerns?

We still have a very good club structure in Denmark and with very good coaches. So we are bringing up good talent, but the competition in the world is increasing all the time. And there’s a lot more countries producing badminton players, and also better players. So the demand is going up all the time, and we have to try to meet them. We would always like to have more talent, to have more to choose from. I don’t think that will ever stop. We have to keep improving. But we’re not so concerned about junior results. We want to develop the players and try to educate them both badminton-wise but also in life skills as well as possible so that they can become as good as possible when they’re seniors.

So that’s our goal, the long-term goal, more than winning a World Junior Championships. We like to win, but it’s not the ultimate goal.

Within Europe, the competition seems to have increased for Denmark. France has produced a batch of good players, Spain as well…

Yeah, you could say that. We have lost some junior championships lately that we didn’t do often in the past. But the competition is both increasing and decreasing because France are growing and becoming very strong, but then other countries like England and Germany are not producing as much talent as they were, in my opinion. And then there’s the odd talent in different countries. Ukraine is producing a lot of talented players, which is very nice. Poland, as well, and Bulgaria obviously. And Spain. So there are more countries, but I’m not sure that the general competition is that much higher than it used to be.

Lars Uhre with Viktor Axelsen.

I think that the other countries focus on developing the juniors a little bit earlier than maybe they used to, and at least more than we do. I must also say that my history in European junior badminton is very limited. So I’m not the right person to ask about that. But we have good competition, and we have also good cooperation with the other European nations, which is nice.

Is your approach towards junior badminton the same as your approach to the seniors, in terms of training?

It’s not completely different, but it is different. There’s a big difference between a 20-year-old and a 30-year-old, but ultimately, they have to produce results. For instance, we don’t select the players on results only. We mostly look at potential. That’s of course a subjective view. So you could argue that we’re picking the wrong team. But I believe that as long as we have experienced and well-educated coaches to pick the teams, then we have to believe in what they believe in. We have some criteria as well. But it’s not only according to the ranking or the results. It is how good we believe that this player can become in the future.

Part 2 of the interview to follow

PARTNERS