The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) has directed national coaching directors Kenneth Jonassen (singles) and Rexy Mainaky (doubles) to conduct an immediate post-mortem following the national men’s team’s failure to win the gold medal at the 2025 SEA Games in Thailand.
Malaysia suffered a heavy 3-0 defeat to long-time rivals Indonesia in yesterday’s final at Gymnasium 4, Thammasat University, Rangsit Campus. The men’s team last clinched SEA Games gold in 2005 during the Philippines edition, extending a two-decade drought.
BAM secretary-general Kenny Goh said the review must be carried out urgently, especially as Malaysia will next compete at the Badminton Asia Team Championships (BATC) 2026 in Qingdao, China, from Feb 3 to 8.
“Firstly, it’s a disappointing result, and we must definitely take drastic steps,” he told reporters.
“Both coaching directors need to review and conduct a post-mortem to identify what went wrong so that this does not happen again, particularly with our preparations underway for BATC 2026.”
Goh, who also serves as Malaysia’s chef de mission, made the comments while attending the national taekwondo squad’s SEA Games matches at Fashion Island Mall.
Although frustrated by the team loss, he expressed hope that the shuttlers would regroup and focus on the individual events, scheduled from today until Sunday.
Malaysia had set a target of four gold medals in badminton at the biennial Games, held from Dec 9 to Dec 20 across Bangkok and Chonburi.
