Sporting gesture

Tonga's young badminton players receive training in China.

A 20-member Tongan badminton team are training at the Yiyang Badminton Sports School in central China's Hunan province. The training will last for two months as part of a Chinese sports aid project for Tonga. Wu Liang, the coach at the Yiyang Badminton School, believed these players could make big progress.

"After the first 15 days, they have made visible improvement and we plan to train them on pace as well as skills and tactics next month," said Wu recently. Tongan players are grateful for this project which is expected to help with their preparation for the next big games.

"I thank China for their kind assistance and for their love for Tonga in developing the technical aspects of sport for Tonga," said Tonga's badminton training team leader Siosifa Malolo. "We have the Pacific Games next year in 2019 and also the Olympic Games in 2020," he said.

"And we are very sure, as we finish the training here in China for the first phase, that we will have greater improvement and perform better in these two sporting events."