Austria's Juergen Koch and Peter Zauner left Hyderabad early on Monday morning, following the departure of the English squad over security concerns and the pair didn't have time to explain why they left.   They cleared things up today by speaking to Badzine.

"The reasons why we left India is mainly because our families were worried for us.  The informations we got from our embassy, our ministry of foreign affaires together with the informations from the media in India made us feel unsecure.  The decision from the English National team to leave Hyderabad, intensified this feeling.  But in the end our final decision to leave India, was because of our families.  They were worried so much about our safety, that we couldn´t take the responsibility to stay there until our first match on Wednesday," they stated when they explained their wish to leave to the World's governing body.

The e-mail explaining the reason for their departure was sent when they reached their transit city of Dubai but the Austrian duo was unable to reach BWF officials directly before they left for the aiport.  They were however not able to fly out from Hyderabad on Sunday night as they had wished but the following morning before returning home to Austria.

In that specific e-mail, they explained that they did not blame Indians organizers for a lack of security nor did they wish to put added pressure on the ongoing tournament:

"We are aware of all the efforts made by organizers and by BWF to secure the environment and we certainly did not want to spoil the tournament nor did we try to talk other players into leaving as well.  It was simply our decision to withdraw over our general feelings and our concern for our families back home," said Juergen Koch, who also mentioned that another timing could have been better to hold the tournament.  "Choosing the time for such a tournament in the same time as the Independance Day may not have been the best option as it is usually a time of high political tension."

"Now, we feel safe and we hope everything will go well with the tournament and wish all the players a great competition in Hyderabad," he added.

Comments

Search RSS

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

---

• CHINA - Xie calls it Quits
• SOLIDARITY - Players' Shirts out for Auction
• No plans to retire: Li Yongbo
• PEOPLE - Ra Kyung Min is Back!
• WORLDS 09 - Food for thought

• WORLDS - All in the Preparation
• WORLDS - Malaysian Coach Admitted to Hospital with Symptoms
• LI MAO - A Chinese Deserter Remembers his Master (Updated)
• BRAND - HEAD Flexes its Badminton
• RE-LIVE CHAT with WONG CHOONG HANN!

---