You can't solve a problem when you don't even know what the problem is. The London Olympics Debacle is best characterized as "intentional technical foul". When a soccer player intentionally commits handball in his own penalty box, it is not throwing the game away but to maximize his team's chance for the final victory. When a chess player sacrifices a pawn or even a rook, it is not throwing the game away, it is a tactic for achieving ultimate victory. Intentional losing is rather common in round robin play in all sports. BWF was outright disgusting to point fingers at the players but not owing up to its own mistake at setting up the stage for such debacle. The subsequent use of random draws after the round robin stage is the solution that should have been deployed at the London Olympics. Players' giving up a match too easily with injury or other issues is a real problem. The optics are particular bad when players from the same BA are involved. It is a problem that definitely need to be addressed. However, saying that the players should fight to their last torn ligament is total non-sense. Hopefully, there is a reasonable middle ground somewhere and a set of objective and enforceable rules can be found. I don't have the solution and look forward to seeing good ideas. But we must understand the total circumstance and approach the problem in a constructive way.
The topic of matches manipulation has been discussed in Badminton Central for a long time. If interested the members can do a search and may find a number of threads regarding this topic. Like RedShuttle mentioned, I also am in the opinion that BWF decided in a format that was not suitable for the Olympics and ultimately the players paid the price. Now, back in the older days... around early 90s. It's been long ago but it seems apparently the current BWF goes with the same logic... I was in a badminton class led by a Chinese coach - youth development and also a veteran international badminton referee. According to him, he was in IBF (or BWF) meetings discussing the seedings for tournaments. The Chinese side defended that players from the same country should be placed on different quadrants of the draw irrespective of their placements in the world ranking. This was in a way to prevent the match manipulations when players from same country playing each other - it's not perfect but at least maybe worth trying. But the international federation disagreed and did not approve the recommendation, the reason being badminton as an individual sport and therefore the tournament draws should not be restricted by the country of the players.
Best of luck WHY in todays semifinal. He needs to reduce his unforced errors and be confident. Always felt he had potential. My favourite junior.
Congratulations WHY in winning your semifinal match. Appreciate if someone can tell me where I can watch his games in this tournament? And where can I watch the final live apart from Justfun, some kind soul please .
Weng Hong Yang vs Sevensen Set1 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV12...tag=s_i×tamp=1649523824&unique_k=85qtdZE Set 2 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Aa411q77n? p=1&share_medium=android_i&share_plat=android&share_source=COPY&share_tag=s_i×tamp=1649526761&unique_k=gzKWhX0 Justfun https://www.zhuafan.tech/channeltypes/Badminton JC is in top form. Difficult task for WHY to beat him. Where is Gelopisan? Normally he would post a lot of links to matches played by Chinese players.
Thank you for the matches on Bilibili tbgoh. I am afraid WHY will have a problem in the final. JC is too fast and strong. Best of luck. Why needs to put pressure on JC but he has to move up a gear or two. I don't see him achieving that level at the moment.
CHN must send Weng Hong Yang to play in many tournaments so he can gain a better ranking and more experience
Video taken down due to copy rights reasons. Hope that it will be reinstated later. Is it only me? It seems to me that JC and WHY have the same style of play, just that one is the lateral image of the other. Congratulations to Weng, but Jonathan had his chances too.
Wow Wow Wow. Finally we have a junior player worth watching. Congratulations WHY. I thought it was not easy, partly because JC was playing so well. But you did it. This will give with a lot of confidence. And JC is a top 10 player who was on a winning streak WHY had a great defence which tired out JC. If he can get a deadlier smash to add to his repertoire he will be difficult to beat. Come on CBA get more juniors travelling the world to play
WHY is nearly 23, but with so little international experience. Sadly, there are so many players like him who will just retire at that age, without having any real opportunities. His age-batch is particularly affected by Covid-19, and I suspect many will not continue (Gu Junfeng, Lei Lanxi, Liu Haichao, Sun Feixiang etc). Same for the WS batch, but at least the China WS situation is not as dire as the MS. CBA really need to change their stance on exposing players.
Well, he not only didn't disappoint you, I believe he blew most of us away, including yourself, watching him sort of coming out of nowhere from start to end of the tournament to finally crown himself champion beating no less than Jonathan Christie in what some described as Lin Danesque style. WHY, oh WHY, WHY has now stole the limelight from his fellow junior, Li Shifeng, at the moment. What has the future in store for WHY ? Can't wait to see him or another young Chinese MS burst onto the international scene to fill the void as Chinese badminton in Men's Singles is in limbo in the absence of Chen Long in hiatus post-Tokyo OG and Shi Yuqi beset by his personal issues.
I have always followed the juniors and I felt he was the best due to the way he played. Good footwork, great smash, a player who thinks on the court. Good style and technique. I was worried that he hadn't got rid of his junior mentality but he has matured and played confidently in the Final. I think in that match his defence made the difference. You could sense at 13 points in the 3rd set he knew he could win. I also like Gu Junfeng and Lei Lanxi but they havent developed as fast and as well. Lets hope its not a one time success as both KV and LSen also had a few losses. So consistency, as someone said will differentiate him from the other young contenders. The juniors have great basics but I notice they dont use deception . Both the Malaysians, CJW and NTY and Indonesians JC, use that very well. Shi Yuqi at his best and LCW are great examples. When a talented player has good speed he can do this readily.
Korea Open MS final: -- https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV13S4y1N78j?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click
Yes very sad. Totally agree with you. Diving and table tennis seem to do this very well. Theres no shortage of new sensations. They start them at below 10 years. I wonder whether its financial and the lack of TV exposure. I just hope this will change.
