It is sad, indeed. Injury and disease are blind to time, thus can haunt any people at any age, including the most untimely one. Ikee is still so young and being diagnosed with leukemia when the Olympic is near can't be much worse than this. Hope for her speedy recovery. Talking about badminton, if the players manage to win gold medal, they will be more well known. There are a lot of players who can potentially grab gold medal.
According to the 2020 medal projections published by Gracenote Sports (May 2019), Japan is projected to take 31 Gold Medals in the Tokyo Olympics, ... four of them in badminton!! As to the four projected Golds... MD: Sonoda/Kamura WD: Nagahara/Matsumoto MS: Momota Kento WS: Okuhara Nozomi Which, I suppose, only leaves XD... In Japan, we are now in the entry period for the draw for Tokyo Olympic tickets. Entry is only possible online, and is open until May 28 to all those resident in Japan. The results of the draw, incidentally, will be published on June 20. I have entered the draw, of course, and have also coerced members of my family to enter on my behalf. As more than 3 million people have registered on the site, I don't hold high hopes of getting my hands on a ticket, .... but if by some obscure chance, all of my family's entries are successful, I am going to be penniless. (Cancellation is not an option after the entry period closes!! )
Zeniya Kinji, NBA strongman, has announced in Badminton Magazine (October 2019 copy) that Bird Japan is aiming for three golds at Tokyo 2020, and five medals altogether.
Wow they kept tennis in A rank. Considering how the tennis individuals don't really need government funding nor do they take Olympics all that seriously. Is Nishikori's "status" superior than that of Momota?
Regardless of the actual needs/status of their players, all the sports associations will probably do anything to get a piece of that Olympic pie. Due to the higher esteem that tennis is held in, Nishikori was certainly "bigger" than Momota, and would definitely be "bigger" again if he could only win a major title. ... At the moment, I am not so sure. Now, if Momota were to get gold at Tokyo, not only his status, but also that of badminton as a whole, would scale new heights.
In my view, that's quite an optimistic forecast of a near clean sweep of golds in badminton. I'd think that MS and WD are the best chances but WS hasn't been going well recently and MD is hit and miss. I'd like to be wrong about that, but it's my current gut feeling. For my tickets to MS&MD London 2012 finals I was only successful in the 3rd round of draws
I think MS and XD are the disciplines of which i find the World Rank No. 1 holder has the highest possibility of winning the Olympic Gold Medal. Others are very much anyone guesses.
Nishikori definitely more famous than Momota. I think parents will rather their child be top 8 player in tennis..
9 months out i think these are the most likely to medal: ms - momota gold, axelsen silver, ginting bronze. dark horse? nobody stands out right now. ws - tai tzu-ying, pv sindhu, carolina marin, yamaguchi. all 4 toss up for gold and remaining medals. dark horse? okuhara. chen yu-fei's ankle is bothersome, otherwise i would toss her in there. md - gold? ahsan/setiawan (if healthy) due to nerves of steel from experience or rankireddy/shetty. if that is the final i pick experience. if it's anyone else vs. ranki/shetty for gold i pick indian power & youth. remaining medal to endo/watanabe. kevin/marcus get a vote of no confidence from me because they have been #1 for over 2 years yet no wc medal of any color. if they win everything leading up to tokyo i'll have even less confidence due to the increased expectation created from, well, winning everything. nobody fear's li/liu anymore. dark horse: choi/seo (kor). wd - kim/kong & lee/shin (korea) & fuku/hirota (japan). korean's are on an upward trajectory right now. japan, china & indonesia are stagnating. i can't picture any european dark horses right now. xd - zsw/hyq 80% chance for gold. 2 weeks ago it was 99%. silver & bronze will be from the crowd of wang/huang (chn), seo/chae (kor), yutarisa (jpn), puava/taera (tha). no dark horses here. will revisit in january...
I don't get Ranki/Shetty for gold nor Endo/Wata. Though I don't disagree with Ahsan/Hendra or minions.
imo thats the risk for Minions have to take.. If they get any color, its still good. If not its too bad. Because winning nothing , doesnt mean you will win Olympic anyway and these days too much money on offer compared to say 5-6 years ago. So it lessens the pain of not winning OG till, so lets sweep as much as you can on offer now. and MD is competitive , unlike XD. One can say ZhengHuang will definitely win the OG title in XD even when they sweep everything (because it has way been too easy). Though i agree ShettyRR will be more powerful come next year, definitely medal contender. 2nd SS (title) on sight this weekend(?) His serve is bothersome though and guess it applies to all players. I dont think Endo can serve well in OG.
Its very very ambitious and early days to put RankiShetty in the medal contender for Olympics let alone a gold medal. They need to beat top pairs consistently to reach that level plus need to have nerves to handle the Olympics "pressure". They have improved , yes but is it enough to reach finals of Olympics, no. Plus draw is a major factor in the Olympics. One great week and you can end up being an Olympic champion but I don't think this has happened in the past that a player or a pair who was never expected to win a gold had won it. Only seasoned and consistent players have won till now. I'll still say its early days for them. You can say if they keep on improving at the same rate, they might be a medal contender for 2024 Olympics.
ya, the pressure in olympics is much greater than WC, due to that its a once in 4 year event. even seasoned players can or had succumbed before. so winning a medal will be an achievement.
i'm going on how much better i feel they will be 9 months from now. i look at their strengths, add some consistency to it and extra confidence/experience they will accumulate along the way. they will be extremely dangerous. both learn quickly and have extraordinary power. what other pair has both players that strong and agile? they certainly aren't getting overpowered by anyone. outplayed? yes, but that will disappear as they gain experience. they're definitely ready to contend now. intelligent talented players progress on a logarithmic scale. improving as fast as they do coming out of a lacking infrastructure cannot be overlooked. re. endo/watanabe... why do i think they will medal? i'm going with my gut, their temperament and home field advantage.
Yet you expect TTY to earn OG medal. Both minions and TTY suffer similar fate. They haven't won a single medal in WC. How can you treat them differently? I am confused.
Read it again. I said I didn't disagree with your opinion on Ahsan/Hendra or minions. But if you only go by how you feel on what pairs will be great in 9 months, it's too early now. I can accept if you put Ranky/Reddy in a dark horse position for now. As for Endo/Wata, I doubt it unless Watanabe not doing double duty in the Olympics. Ahsan/Hendra and Endo had failed in their previous Olympics campaign, hard to say about their temperament or nerve if steels when it matters.
