Jan Ø. Jørgensen and David Gilmour join Badminton Scotland performance coaching team

Badminton Scotland is pleased to announce the appointment Jan Ø. Jørgensen as a consultant coach and David Gilmour as a part time performance coach to the Scottish National squad following a change to the team’s coaching structure.

The restructure follows the announcement of Alan McIlvain’s departure at the end of this month and comes ahead of an important stage in the qualification for the 2022 Birmingham  Commonwealth Games.

Jørgensen will be providing ongoing support remotely and on court in Glasgow and is looking forward to developing both his coaching career and the Scottish team over the coming months.

“I’m really excited to be part of this project for the Commonwealth Games 2022 and hope my knowledge and experience as a player can help develop and move the Scottish team forward’ said Jørgensen.

“As a coach, I’m still in a learning process and am going into this assignment with great humility. I’d like to thank Ingo, Badminton Scotland and sportscotland for making this happen and I can’t wait to get started.”

The former world number two retired in 2020 following an illustrious career during which he won multiple national and international titles, becoming the first European male singles player to win the Indonesia Open and winning the European Championship title in 2014.

On his appointment, Head Coach Ingo Kindervater said: “We are very excited to have Jan involved. Having someone with his knowledge, background and experience is going to be inspiring for our players and will help us to take the next big steps in our quest to bring the Scottish team forward in the world of badminton.”

Jørgensen is already getting involved remotely and added significant value to the preparation of the Uber Cup team that were playing in Denmark this week. He will be joining the team in Scotland for a few weeks of in-person training in November.

Keith Russell Badminton Scotland CEO said: “The appointment of Jan and David adds even more depth to an already incredibly experienced and talented coaching team. Being able to attract someone with Jan’s experience and status within the sport, shows the impact that Ingo and the coaches are having and I am very excited about the next stage in the development of a very talented group of young players.

“I would personally like to thank Alan for his contribution to the development of the programme during what have been extremely difficult circumstances for players and coaches and we look forward to Alan contributing in other areas of the sport in the coming years.

‘The development of Scottish coaches is a really important part of our long term strategy and it is really pleasing to be able to have David join the team and provide an opportunity for a Scottish coach to further develop their coaching career. We are also grateful to sportscotland for providing additional mentoring support for this role.”

Speaking of his new role, David said:  “I’m delighted to be given the opportunity to join the team and I’m really excited to be working with Jan, Ingo, Bob and a great squad of players.

“I’m going to be learning a lot and I will work incredibly hard to ensure our players reach their goals.”