First, Thomas Cup and second Asian Games, badminton powerhouse CHN failed to top podium... It's Son Wan Ho who derailed CHN scenario to bag gold yesterday, the script was pretty predictable that KOR had advantage to win it at the end. Seemed dilemma for CHN to field their turf card Lin Dan as MS2 or MS3, if Tian HW or even Wang ZM played MS2, don't think they could turn the table in under pressure circumstances, trailing behind 0-2. Lin Dan and Cai/Fu had done their job to avoid 0-3 humiliating defeat as CHN did in TC semifinal against JPN. Congrats to all team event medalists
Congratulations to Korea Men's team!!! As expected, they win their 3rd time AG Men's team title, all on home soil!!!!
In team competition, Chin's weak link is CL. He can do well individually but he cant handle the pressure as a Team player. Lee Hyu Il has more lives than a cat. How many times have this guy retired and how many times he has come back to torment younger up and coming players. Something has changed in the top men singles department of Badminton. The change of the scoring format to 21 rally system have allowed older players to retain their Umphh well past their sell by date. PG and LHI would have been clobbered by those in 22 and 24 age group if we are still playing 15 serve point system. But today , LCW and LD 32 and 31 respectively are still making it difficult for youngsters to break thru and dominate the game. Either these two are exceptional or the yougsters these day are not really that fantastic. Dont think they could even compare to CHen Hong , Xia, Jonassen, Bao. Who could hold LD and LCW to ransome when the latters were younger.
I'm interested to know where you read or learnt of this. Imo, it was the correct decision to play LD at 2nd singles. We forget that team competition is so volatile and the pressure affects everyone. If you remember the Thomas Cup finals, MS3, the game wasn't even about technical skill but who was standing under pressure better. At 0-2 down, I very much doubt WZM would have mentally held against LDK (Wang has always had stability issues). THW is untested too but seems to have a stronger mentality. There was no better person to right the tilting ship than Lin Dan with his experience under pressure. The big wrench in the plan was Chen Long losing. But tbh I don't think it is good to blame him. It's a team tournament for a reason and putting blame on someone isn't going to help.
I'll say LYB bringing in the old guards who won their ties for CHN was an 'ingenious' move. There is no guarantee that WZM could beat LDK and if he had lost, game over for CHN. Indeed, statistically speaking, CL should be able to beat SWH basing on H2H, but he failed to the great disappointment of LYB. Alarm bells sounded rather loudly then. LD beating LDK was a no brainer, but it was LD who saved face for CHN for not being whitewashed 3-nil by KOR and that kept CHN alive. It was a tremendous effort by veterans CY/FHF to bring down Kim2 in MD2, albeit in three games, but LHI's form of late has been relatively good and not even young GH could stretch him to a rubber. It must be LHI's time to shine for KOR once again! Statistics is but just a guide. The real performance on court is what counts in reality.
Just watch Gao Huan and Lee HI played. Gao is 24, not exactly a youngster either in Top MS terms. Many top men had been champions by they were 24. Lee HI is 34, a good ten years older and had played for korea as a junior since 97. Was a JO runner up at 21 and AG runner up at 22. In their match Gao was faster and had more spring in his legs and yet at 11-5 in the 1st game he was puffing away while you can hardly see LHI breathe.
Guys, being French badminton player at a club level, I have by no means the experience and insight on Chinese badminton you have for sure but what i just observed is that CL regularly screws up on these occasions (see Thomas Cup, now AG...); then putting Gao Huan against LHI was certainly not the best as GH is not of the caliber of Lee HI who demonstrated over such long time not only its regularity but mental strength (see his overall career and battles against LCW as an illustration). LYB would habe been well advised to take WZhengmin with him as he would have had a better chance against the Korean. For me denying this 3rd place to WZ twice cost him a lot. I am deeply convinced he woyuld have done better in both occasions (TC and AG). Result is China will not bring Gold home.
Chen Long is the one to blame for the defeat of the team. He was also partly to blame in Thomas Cup. Du Pengyu was "punished" and he took early retirement. However, it is unlikely that Chen Long would be out of China team because at the moment there is still gaps between him and other Chinese players(except Lin Dan of course). I wonder what kind of punishment will Chen Long get. He is probably not in Sudirman Cup next year. I believe Lin Dan and possibly Wang Zhengming or Tian Houwei will be selected.
I like the 'main culprit' words. The dragon caught in an era where 2 out of 4 MS kings still playing considerably well near their retirement. Dynamic up and down performance, unstable yet fascinating to see his future They said age is just a number =D Very amusing how LHI dominating the court against an opponent 10 years younger. Inspiring performance
I didn't watch the 2nd singles but for both the 1st and 3rd singles, the KOR players played very good net shots with most of the time shuttles tumbling and very close to the net, esp the first singles even when a few by Son was killed by CL and they only lift high to the baseline when necessary. This is one area that contributed to their win. One more thing, all 3 KOR single players wore long stockings. Is this another contributing factor too?
I could not agree more with your comment scorpion1. see my comment further below but i think China team shot into its feet in not selecting (for the second time after TC) W ZM would have had more chance to win. Now CL could be blamed for sure and having won the WC is no consolation for CBA as Asian Games is very important as I understand it from an European perspective. When are we going to recognize the true value of a player like W ZM? DPY was clearly lower level than him and even though his nemesis is LD, W ZM has demonstrated he could stand the pressure on events like that. Now L HI is a formidable player from my view point, he is steel made and could resist. he has an awful lot more experience than GH. He was sure to win. For me, having seen what he is capable of doing over all these years, L HI despite his age is capable of beating on a single tournament a lot of players in the current top 10 rankings. I hope this will be a lesson learned for the future. I dont do politics but I presume some politics were into play in this team choices anyway
pdauget45, you don't seem to get something that has been repeated several times in this thread. In order for WZM to play, he would have had to play 2nd singles, with LD playing 3rd singles due to the lineup order needing to correspond with world rankings. So the choice was MS2: WZM/THW MS3: LD or MS2: LD MS3: GH That hypothetical decision has already been debated several times already as well. Does each side know the other side's lineup when handing in the lineup? I doubt it -- making it impossible for LYB to pick his matchups on such a granular scale. Finally, if WZM lost to LDK and LD didn't play, pretty sure WZM would get murdered by Chinese citizens.
Let's move on. Debate till cow comes home. Well done to Korea. Good to let others win it. Else, it will be too boring isn't it?
I remembered Li Yong Bo saying about cheating linesmen and umpire in busan 2002 and he will threaten to walk out of the court if incident like this recur. Well, he is right. Chen long could have won the match but why son wan ho won? Cheating of course. The Korean won with the help if the wind by the air conditioner that can blow away shuttlecock. So funny here. Terrible. Korea likes to cheat to win. That us why Korea will inky win the mixed team event title if it is held in Korea. By 2018, they won't have such a chance anymore even if Lin Dan retires and Chen long also retires because it is so clear cut that Korea cheats to win. So sad.:crying:
