The Global times reports that China’s Lin Dan was stunned by little-known South Korean Choi Ho-jin in the badminton final at the fifth East Asian Games in Hong Kong Sunday, but the world No. 2 blamed his tight schedule throughout the year for this rare defeat.
“It’s hard to play every single tournament during the year,” complained “Super Dan.”
“I played in the National Games, the international events and now it’s the East Asian Games. Even so, I still have to play for my club afterward. I traveled a lot all over (during) the year and haven’t trained regularly for quite a while. I’m so tired,” he added.
Though feeling sorry that Lin failed to claim gold, Chinese badminton fans expressed their understanding to what Lin had said.
“It’s no big deal (losing). I can see he’s too exhausted after playing a lot of games. Just let him take a break,” said an anonymous fan on sohu.com.
Lin’s defeat in 41 minutes shocked a Hong Kong crowd that had fully expected China’s top male player to take the gold medal with ease
The Malaysia Star newspaper has boldly predicted a medal sweep for rival indonesia in the upcoming Asian Sea Games.
“INDONESIA are looking good for a clean sweep of all seven gold medals at stake in badminton. And Malaysia will have to slog very hard indeed to even steal one of them.
Besides having a solid team, Indonesia also have good incentive and great motivation to accomplish the feat – a gold medal is worth RM80,000.
And their seriousness in wanting to make an impact in the Laos Games was underlined by the withdrawal of their top players from the US$500,000 Super Series Masters Finals in Johor Baru last week.
Malaysia’s doubles chief coach Rexy Mainaky said that Indonesia had always treated the SEA Games as one of their main tournaments.
“For Indonesians, it is a privilege and honour to represent their country. And the government honours their commitment by giving out rewards lavishly,” said Rexy, an Indonesian.
“Besides the RM80,000 reward, the athletes can also look forward to good job opportunities and sometimes land is also given to the winners. The SEA Games is a big thing in Indonesia.
“With strong support and backing, nothing will stop Indonesian players from going all out in the SEA Games.
“It will be an achievement for Malaysia to beat Indonesia at their best.”
An AFP news report confirmed today that Lee Chong Wei will not play the Asian Sea Games.
World number one badminton player Chong Wei withdrew from Malaysia’s Southeast Asian Games squad on his coach’s orders due to injury concerns, according to a report.
Lee’s absence is a major blow to the team’s hopes at the SEA Games and comes after Malaysia scooped three titles at the season-ending BWF World Super Series Masters Finals, including Lee’s win in the men’s singles on Sunday.
“I told him (Lee) to rest upon advice from a private doctor in Kuala Lumpur due to his nagging thigh injury,” Misbun Sidek, the national singles coach, was quoted as saying by Malaysia’s New Straits Times newspaper. [..]
Independent sports website, Sportingo, has run an article asserting that Asian dominance within the Badminton is holding the sport back.
Sportingo quotes,
“Despite the fast-paced action and tremendous excitement it offers, badminton does not enjoy the same popularity and media coverage as basketball, soccer, boxing, tennis or even mixed martial arts.
Badminton combines stamina, strength and speed which make it perfect as a spectator sport.
It is an Olympic sport that has five disciplines – men’s and women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
It boasts of greater explosive athleticism than most racket sports as players are required to jump for height to execute those game-winning smashes.
On record, the fastest tennis stroke is Andy Roddick’s 153mph serve while the fastest badminton stroke is Fu Haifeng’s 206mph smash.
Bill Gates watched a badminton match at the Beijing Olympics and was quoted as saying that he liked what he saw. What, then, could explain the sport’s lack of ample media coverage, viewership and patronage? [..]
Badminton fans had more than one reason to bring the roof down with their loud cheers as Malaysian shuttlers swept three of the five titles at stake in the USD500,000 (RM1.75 million) Super Series Masters Finals at the City Council Indoor stadium here Sunday.
Malaysian shuttlers who entered three finals to mark a memorable day for Malaysian badminton, made it a 100 percent record win, to match their feat in last year’s final at Kota Kinabalu, by clinching the women’s singles, women’s doubles and men’s singles titles, although the absence of Chinese shuttlers did take away much of the glamour.
Celebrations started early for the thousands who filled the stadium to the brim when women’s national number Wong Mew Choo set the ball rolling by providing the early cheers with a 21-15, 21-7 win over Germany’s Juliane Schenk.
“I am so happy and the winner’s cheque for US$40,000 is a gift from heaven really. Don’t forget I was not supposed to be playing in the championship because I did not qualify, until the top players started pulling out.
“Anyway I am here and I told myself I got nothing to lose. So I went out there and enjoyed myself and I played some of the best badminton of my career, including the final,” said Mew Choo. [..]
