Olympic gold medalists Wang Chi-lin and Lee Yang depart today for Bali, Indonesia, to compete in the three-tournament Indonesia Badminton Festival, looking to regain the form that carried them to victory for Taiwan at the Summer Games in Tokyo.
On Tuesday next week, the third-seeded men’s doubles duo are to face world No. 44 Yoshinori Takeuchi and Keiichiro Matsui of Japan in the first round of the Super 750 Indonesia Masters, which offers prize money of US$600,000.
Wang and Lee are also seeded third as the festival continues with the Super 1000 Indonesia Open, which opens on Nov. 23 with a US$850,000 purse. The BWF World Tour Finals, the last tournament of the festival, opens on Dec. 1 with a purse of US$1.5 million.
Photo: Reuters
The duo won Taiwan’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in badminton in Tokyo, but Lee told the Central News Agency on Monday that he had sustained a lower-back injury at the Tokyo Games and had limited his tournament appearances since then to keep it in check.
The pair chose to represent Taiwan at the Thomas Cup in Denmark in the middle of last month and then competed in the Denmark Open the following week, because the events were in the same country, but they quickly returned to Taiwan to prevent his injury worsening, Lee said.
Lee said that competing in back-to-back tournaments and following disease prevention measures “definitely affects the rhythm of training.”
However, there is no other choice, he added.
“We have to protect ourselves and others. At this difficult time, we will do our best to prepare for each match,” Lee told reporters.
The duo won all three of their group matches at the Thomas Cup, even though Taiwan failed to advance out of the group stage, but they were ousted in the second round of the Denmark Open by eventual winners Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi of Japan.
To advance to the top in Indonesia, Wang and Lee might need to face the two top-seeded Indonesia teams, which they defeated under pressure-packed conditions at the Olympics, as well as the in-form pairing of Hoki and Kobayashi.
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