To me,people in the East or the West have the same human nature, both loyalty and honesty are valued widely just to differing degrees. For me, honesty is more important than loyalty esp when it clashes with my principles and conscience; ultimately, one is responsible for one's own actions, you should not use loyalty as an excuse to commit wrong, the consequences are yours to bear. Sorry, off-topic.
So you guys actually think CL played his best. You cannot be serious. You simply cannot be serious. That's so naive, that it's almost cute. No smashing power no speed no nothing, by the reigning All England Champion. Come guys. Nobody believed Li Yongbo would throw a match at the olympics. But he did. And today Lin Dan was to win, and not get too tired. Living in the real world.
Obviously you have not watched CL play much. This is his style. He played like that against LCW or any body else.
The fact that Lin Dan could beat Chong Wei Feng yesterday convincingly is proof positive that he is still a force to be reckoned with, regardless whether his match with CL was real or not, played all-out or not.
fixed it. even though i think it is possible for him to say two. it has happened that matches finishes less than 2 games.
IMHO, I do think LD is capable to raise his performance if he meets LCW in final. LCW always bring out the best & increase the fighting spirit in LD.Plus LCW tends to put extra pressure on himself, which made him not only fighting LD but also himself. We can usually see that LCW able to play well against other players but not LD. If LCW lose his confidence during the game, I guess even 80% LD can beat LCW. With home ground advantage, I think LD may still has a upper hand. I am crossing my finger hoping LCW can win this time around~
Was Chen Long playing his best against Darren Liew yesterday? Methinks, he wasn't at his attacking best but that's Chen Long who often play a different style with different player or at different times. I recall Chen Long's games with Ponsana, Kashyap, Marc Zwiebler, etc, etc, at different pace, degree of aggression - except when he played LCW with whom he was always at his scintillating form.
i watched the game and it was not exciting at all.. many of chen long's games have good pace and are rather exciting to watch, but today's LD vs CL was rather passive, very low on aggression, it looked to me like a "friendly" training session kinda scenario. even if there were no other forces behind the scene "fixing" the game, in a typical china vs china game, most of them are rather relaxed and not all out to kill each other naturally..
i am just kind of amused that everyone (in this thread) automatically assumes LCW will walk all over DPY, whose defense and perseverance is one of the best in the game. y'all remember my words if DPY makes it to the finals.
IMHO, I see a transition in playing styles for Lin Dan. First, the explosive, all-guns blazing attacking style around Beijing 2008. Second, the less aggressive,more balanced but still attacking style up to London 2012. Third, is this new, mature,steady,unhurried, more rallying, much less aggressive but much more deceptive, patient manoeuvring style. This is purely my subjective observation. I see him as evolving his style to suit his varying age and its corresponding physicality.
Frankly, in the LD vs CL match, I did say that when CL's strategy in G1 failed badly losing 21-13, he should, with nothing to lose, go all-out attack mode which he did try a few times but without much success as LD defended brilliantly denting his aggression; still I believe CL should've tried harder as there's no other option. Maybe CL has too much respect for LD and lacks the inner belief he can beat him, but,seriously,it's time he grew out of it and be his own man, for he really has the capability to rule the badminton world.
Let's make a comparison between the two matches: Lin Dan vs Chen Long AND Lin Dan vs Chong Wei Feng. Try to compare and contrast the two players' performance, Chen Long and Chong Wei Feng in their respective games with Lin Dan. What's the difference? Can you tell who tried harder?
i think your last question on this particular post is very important. i believe that players do rely on their coaches during a match, for pointers, encouragements, suggestions, corrections. for this particular game, LD had shown that he is a better player W/O the coaches' help. which in turn make him a better player mentally, that he can (my guess anyway) disect his own game while playing it and improve or adjust as needed.
We can't be sure if there was instruction for the players. The thing is a lot of people are doubting because of the behavior of the Chinese team in the LYB era. It is a problem of reputation. By manipulating some results, the CHN team choose the small profit and forgot the big picture. One's name is more precious then this or that result. i do not think GC is anti-chinese. At least not in all respect. She is always positive when commenting on Chinese WS.
I'm a bit shocked however in this thread that Gillian Clark is being called anti-Chinese. In my opinion, she is a terrific commentator with plenty of insight, knows lots of trivial facts and always respectful and objective about each player on court. As a matter of fact, thanks to her I gained even more motivation for badminton. Together with Morten Frost, they are a great commentator duo; Morten Frost gives more insight in the game with his coaching perspective (eg. more talk about the mental game). I'm not biased towards Gillian Clark. I've watched tons of videos in every discipline with her as a commentator and I've never heard her say anything that could cross the line. As a matter of fact; she's praising lots of Chinese players for their great attitude on court, their impeccable technique and movement. She even calls YY & WXL the players that completely reformed/transformed WD's to a higher level. Her commentary of the SF from the Korean Open 2013, where YY & WXL had to play against Kim Ha Na & Jung Kyung Eun sounded like an ode to the Chinese pair.
GC is a professional and have played the game at the highest level and have watched hundreds/thousand of games and shes just telling the truth - the game was fixed - LD was asked to play in this championship with the sole objective of a marketing dream final vs LCW.
Is it possible that we are just overreacting and all the commentators meant was that CL was playing too passive and thus is probably going to lose...? (To clarify, the way I interpreted it was that GC was saying CL is not playing aggressive enough, and the male commentator was saying he thought it was very likely that LD would win the second game.) They also mentioned that CL had a lot of strapping and there were several times where it looked like he was doing little arm circles after a rally--maybe CL has a shoulder injury?
one time Morten and Gillian were commentating a game and Morten by accident addressed the Denmark badminton team as "we" and he immediately correct himself that it is not professional to take sides. but i do enjoy Morten's insights to all the technical stuff about badminton i rarely pay attention to Gillian Clark and only when in regards to trivial stuff when i pay attention to her so i cannot comment on her attitude in particular to the Chinese badminton team. but when she's not commentating, i do miss her
