Ireland’s top mixed doubles stars, Sam and Chloe Magee, when on our BEC Podcast earlier in the year, openly discussed their retirements thoughts. With the tournament schedule turned upside down, has anything changed?
Sam Magee has won three bronze European Games medals, one European Championship bronze and was in a tight battle to book a ticket to Tokyo. As we all know, the Olympics has been pushed to 2021 and players are still eagerly awaiting news on when the qualification period restarts. Talking about how they feel at this moment, Sam Magee states.
- Right now, we are in the dark with what the future holds. We are currently waiting on what the tournament system and how Olympic qualifying will look like. With that in mind, it is hard to get a goal to work towards at the minute. Being a badminton athlete, this is an odd situation as we are always going from goal to goal and looking for the next target.
Listen to Sam and Chloe Magee on the BEC Podcast
My focus
Both Sam and Chloe Magee have had a terrific career and have pulled Irish badminton up to the upper echelons of European badminton. There was some talk about retirement post-Olympics. With this now being pushed further down the road, what does this mean for them?
- The postponement of the Olympics causes many issues. It means another year of potential travelling looking for points. It has altered my thoughts, as it was for sure going to be a crossroad in August after the games when I would have time to evaluate my career and look to see what was next for me.
Most of the speculation was around Chloe retiring after Tokyo. If this does happen, Sam discusses what he would choose to do.
- Chloe has, of course, being dwelling on the idea to stop after the Olympics if we made it or not. Now with the uncertainty and another year before the games, Chloe still has decisions to make. As regards for myself, retirement is also an option, but my focus has been to continue. I was going to sit down with Badminton Ireland after the games and see what their plan is for me and see if my ambitions in the sport match.