China’s world No. 1 Lin Dan clinched gold in the Olympic badminton yesterday, outclassing Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei and avenging his first round loss in Athens four years ago.
World champion Lin produced a silky smooth performance that left second seed Lee hopelessly out-gunned, winning 21-12, 21-8 and sparking wild celebrations from the packed Chinese crowd.
The loss was heartbreak for the mild-mannered Lee and for Malaysia which had been counting on their champion to deliver the country’s first ever Olympic gold in any sport.
PHOTO: AFP
But with the weight of a nation on his shoulders, Lee made a series of costly errors in the first game as Lin, with a packed Chinese crowd screaming their support, produced brilliant badminton.
Lee clawed his way back in the first, but Lin held his nerve, aggressively attacking the net to wrap up the first game.
Lin, the back-to-back world champion, raced to a 7-0 lead before Lee started to chip away as Lin, sensing victory, made several mistakes. But the Chinese star, who has been the world No. 1 for most of the last four years, then steadied and stormed to victory.
China’s Chen Jin won bronze after he defeated South Korea’s champion Lee Hyunil in the play-off.
Earlier, South Korea’s Lee Hyo-jung and Lee Yong-dae won the gold medal in the mixed doubles, defeating Indonesia’s Liliyana Natsir and Nova Widianto in straight sets.
The unseeded South Koreans defeated the top-seeded Indonesians 21-11, 21-17.
It was South Korea’s third medal of the Olympic badminton tournament.
China’s Yu Yang and He Hanbin won the bronze medal with a 21, 21-17, 23-21 win over Indonesia’s Flandy Limpele and Vita Marissa.
Taiwan’s men’s A team last night defeated their counterpart B team 82-77 in their first showdown in the William Jones Cup at New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang Gymnasium. With four wins under their belt, Taiwan’s A squad — also known as the blue team, consisting of the national team’s main roster — lead the tournament, while Malaysia and the Philippines Strong Group-Pilipinas, who were not scheduled to play last night, are both undefeated with three wins each. Taiwanese-American teenager Robert Hinton, playing in his first William Jones Cup, led the scoring early in the first quarter, putting up nine points for the A
Taiwanese tennis ace Hsieh Su-wei and partner Jan Zielinski of Poland on Friday advanced to the mixed doubles final at Wimbledon, just one step away from clinching their first mixed doubles title at the tournament. Hsieh and Zielinski, who won the Australian Open title earlier this year and who had reached the semi-finals at the French Open, battled past second seeds Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand 7-6, (7/0), 6-3. In the first set, the Taiwanese-Polish duo saved a set point, pushing the set into a tiebreaker. They clinched the set by winning the tiebreaker with seven straight points. The duo
CHALLENGE SET: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Poland’s Jan Zielinski are to play against New Zealand’s Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe in the mixed doubles semi-finals Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and her Polish partner, Jan Zielinski, on Thursday advanced to the mixed doubles semi-final at Wimbledon in a tight battle that ended in a super tiebreaker. The seventh-seeded duo, who won the Australian Open mixed doubles title earlier this year and reached the semi-finals of the French Open, needed 125 minutes to beat Britain’s Jamie Murray and the US’ Taylor Townsend 7-6, 6-7 (10-5). Hsieh and Zielinski took the first set with a 7-2 win in the tiebreaker and seemed poised to close out the match in the second set tiebreaker when they took a 4-0 lead. With the Taiwan-Poland
A chance encounter during a drunken night out was the unlikely catalyst for breaker Sunny Choi’s journey to the Paris Olympic Games. The 35-year-old American is to showcase her skills before a global audience in Paris when breaking makes its debut on the Olympic stage. Choi is the beneficiary of efforts to attract younger fans to the Olympics, a move that led to breaking’s inclusion for the first time. However, as Choi says, the Olympics was the last thing on her mind when she took up the sport. A freshman student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Choi stumbled into breaking