Kento Momota, a two-time world champion, announced his retirement from international badminton on Thursday, confessing he has never been the same after a terrible vehicle tragedy four years ago. Japan’s Momota was once the uncontested king of badminton, capturing 11 titles and losing only six of his 73 matches in 2019. However, in January 2020, the vehicle transporting him to Kuala Lumpur airport crashed hours after he won the Malaysia Masters. The driver was killed, and Momota required surgery to fix a damaged eye socket.

When Momota returned after a year away, he suffered from double vision and was unable to achieve the sparkling form that had propelled him to world number one, despite winning two additional titles. Momota, now rated 52 and having missed out on the Paris Olympics, will retire from Japan’s national squad after competing in the Thomas Cup in China later this month. After that, he will only compete in domestic championships in Japan, not on the badminton World Tour.

There were a lot of tough times after that traffic accident. I tried to get back to the way I used to play through trial and error, but there was a gap between my feelings and my body. That continued and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to a level where I was competing with the world’s best, Momota told reporters in Tokyo.

Momota admitted he had “no regrets” about retiring from top-level badminton. The 29-year-old shuttler wants to promote badminton in Japan and thanked the people involved in the sport for helping him through his darkest hour. There was a lot of hardship and it wore me down, but I didn’t want to blame the tough times on the accident. I wanted to bounce back from it and that attitude along with the support of people around me at least allowed me to get a foothold, he expressed.

Momota had hoped to compete in the Paris Olympics this summer, but his national ranking did not qualify him for the Japanese team. He lost in the first round of the Tokyo Games in 2021, which he characterized as “nothing but a frustrating memory”.

I don’t think I was fully prepared for it but I had dreamed of playing at the Olympics for a long time so in that sense it was a good experience, he added. Momota urged his Japanese teammates to learn from his mistakes and keep calm when they step out onto the Olympic court in Paris.