World Champion ! Its still among the most pretigious title every badminton player dreams of. Madrid WC2006 is short of perfection, but it did provide a stage for professional badders to demonstrate he is the best of the best. To me, I see team England and team China as the biggest winners. I don't have a history book in front of me, but my impression is this is the best year for team England, sending two mixed doubles and one men's doubles pairs to the finals is an exceptional achievement. As for team China...I don't have to say much. The boys and girls under LYB are just getting stronger and better each year. There is no doubt China will continue be the team for everyone to beat in many years to come. Who are the biggest losers? To me its Indonesia. I want to say Malaysia also but at least KKK/WPT and LCW are among the semi finalists....so its not that bad. I still have high expection on team INA as this is the only team that can challenge team China. I hope they do better next year.....
Indonesia are by far the biggest losers of the competition, not because their players were out mostly by QF stage, but because the defeat of their players symbolise something else more significant: The rotting of PBSI. Indonesian badminton has been on the decline for a number of years now. Their best MS player currently is world no. 23. In the WS division, we are behind even some of the european nations who are not naturally badminton nations. More importantly, I don't see us going anywhere but down by the time we get to Beijing Olympics.
China was the biggest winner. They struck gold in the 4 most prestigious events: MS, WSX, MD, and WD. They even struck gold and silver in 3 events: MS, WS, and WD. The least prestigious event is XD and they did not win that gold.
XD is less pretigious in Asia. I think something to do with our upbringing where boys and girls mixing together is frowned upon, at least to a certain extent. Yet Korea, China, Indonesia and Thailand still concentrate on building strong XD pairs to challenge the dominance of European pairs. Still remember the last time, XD titles are almost always won by Europeans, with a few occasional victories by Indonesian pairs. In the WC, until Wang Pengren/Shi Fangjing of China won the 1987 XD title, no Asian XD ever won. After that some other Asian countries ensured that XD training receive more attention. Now you see Zhang Jun/Gao Ling, Jung/Lee Hyo Jung, Nova/Lilyana are counted upon to wrest domination of XD from the Europeans, backed up by Sudket/Saralee, Xie Zhongbo/Zhang Yawen, Zhang Wei/Zhao Tingting. This is probably the only discipline where the balance of power is about equal.
China is biggest winner! It's a shame they didn't take the XD as well both Indonesia is the biggest loser! What happened??? They did well last year!
Germany is also a winner... 2 girls in the semis... OK, ZN and XXF where too strong, but still 2 medals for germany. (even if I can't understand how Xu managed to become World Number 2, XXF is much better I think...)
i disagree, i think that england are the biggest winners. most of us expected china to win at least the WS and WD, with a good chance of taking the MS and a lesser chance of capturing the MD and XD (perhaps). but i don't think anyone would have fathomed an all england (wow, a pun!) XD final and an english pair in the MD final. bit off topic (it appears to be a really bad habit of mine), but how come players don't have to represent UK in badminton but are instead split up into england, scotland, wales and so on? i thought this was a phenomenon which only applied to football, cricket, rugby and snooker. it doesn't happen in tennis.
China Men's Doubles are the biggest winner, because they finally won the gold again China Mixed Doubles are the biggest loser, because they have 4 best pairs in the world but home with both hands empty.
One big surprise: the order of the powerhouses have been re-arranged as following: 1st tier) China , (4 golds, 3 silvers) as always 2nd tier) England, (1 gold, 2 silvers))BIG surprise: 3rd tier) German, (2 bronzes) surprise! Overzier must learnt a lot from Xu 3rd tier) Denmark (2 bronzes) no surprise, a typical result 4th tier) Malaysia (1 bronze) 4th tier) Korea (1 bronze) 4th tier) Thailand (1 bronze) (future competitors ) Hong Kong (0), Singapore (0), Indonesia (0), France (0), Bulgaria (0), Japan (0),
Of course some tournaments are crazy. Taufik will always be a contender for a gold. Indo doubles are always semi finalist material as well as Mal doubles. Korean doubles maybe on the rise. Korean XD player dropped out days before the tournament. KJ dropped out for Denmark, hes quarter - semi material. Shoji Sato beat Boonsak Ponsana. I really hope INDO doesn't lose their contender status.
UK will be represented at the olympics as I think this is the only time that all 'home countries' play under one flag. the tennis is unusual (maybe something to do with the way the funding works, i think!). I have seen Andy Murray play for both scotland (some tournament) and GB. Hope the above helps
The biggest losers should be Indonesia specially Taufik and PBSI official. They kept saying in the interviwes with Indonesia press that Taufik loss to Chen Honh because: 1. CH play very well. 2, (Very lame .. I mean LAME excuse) The wind from the building made Taufik do lots of unforced errors. Very ridiculous reason. Cause all players will get the part of the court which had wind situation. But look at Xie Xing Fang for example. No matter which part of the court she play, left or right, she trumpled all her opponent in 2straight set including Zhang Ning. The key to sucess is only one. Work hard and prepare yourself for big evebts very well. No more lame excuses please! And I agree with Darth. If PBSI wont changed any of their ways like right now, I doubt we even can get any bronze in Beijing 2008, not to mention gold medal. Every countries keep imroving and prepare theirselves better and better. we, Indonesia who are the power of badminton in the early and mid 90, still sleeping with our past success.
Biggest winners: all the players who lost in this year WC, they get another chance NEXT YEAR Biggest losers:All the previous n current champions, current champions get a year before defending n the previous champions as their title is just that less impressive than before.
The biggest winner should be: 1. China. This is predictable before WC begin. The WS and MD results are predictable before the WC begin. But 3 MS in SF with Cai/Fu blazing anyone in their path with 2 sets, indicate they prepare theirselves very well after they only won 2 titles in WC 2005. 2. European countries. Thanks to lots of China ex players and Rexy touches, with Denmark doubles consistency, they had emerged to be the power to reckoned with. Look at the Thomas and Uber Cup. If it wasn't for China, maybe for the first time in history, Thomas and Uber already went to European land for Denmark and Netherland. And now the England MD and XD specially Nathan already played like Asia pairs thanks to Rexy with explosive smash everytimes the shuttlecock get high. The results? All England XD finals in WC and MD runner up in WC 2006.
Menawhile what about Asia players beside China? Indonesia players already fall apart. Only Lily/Nova can be hope to step right back. Malaysia MD , Choong/Lee probably will be retired soon and they had mental problem in big events. But they still had KKK/CCM who had hope for the future if Rexy can toughten their mental. And of course LCW. After WCH, Malaysia didn't hadany consistent top players unt6il LCW. He is still young, his skill is very good. Probably only need self confidence and toughten his stamina. Korea MD is not consistent at all. At one times they can beat any pairs in the world. But at other times, they can lost tamely and easily. And Lee Hyun Il also consistent enough. For the ladies parts. Singles is still hopeless. Still the same. Eriko, Cheng Shao Chieh, Saina, Li Li, Kaori,WMC, still not consistent enough. Sometimes they can win over Yao JIe or Xu, Pi. But sometimes they even lost to Petya, Tine and others. If they wanted to be able had the chances to beat China players, they should had to be able to won ver the European players every time they meet. If not, they will be only second level players all their lives. From WD. Asia had lots of good players. And they can win any of European pairs with ease except England pair Donna/Gail Emms. It will be tooth and nail fight every times. And maybe once a while Denmark pairs. Of course Lee/Lee from Korea is above all. Their main rival is only China WD. But it will not help a lot in team events, cause now Korea didn't had any singles and second WD who can guarantee any points for them like they used to be if they meet any Asia and European teams except for China girls.
I'll check them as a big loser...Have they learned anything??.. concur there... ..this is a good example of what i call : One reaps what one sows. I don't want to ignite another "What should PBSI do now?" thread, i think we've brought that up before, but in this case, the "One" is in reference to PBSI...They rather enjoy, "take a shortcut" & do less sacrifice NOW(2-4 yrs ago) rather than work hard & do more sacrifice NOW(2-4 yrs ago) for the benefit in the future..And they are surely reaping it...
PBSI should revert to their old long term planning. In the 50s and right up to the 90s they had a very good long term system, in cooperation with the various privately sponsored badminton clubs. The results were the most no of TC + Olympic victories. And even if the women were not as successful, they had Susi Susanti who was a world no 1, and should have held on to Mia (who could've been the next Susi). This is not much different from China's system, except that China goes to the extreme whereby potentials are physically measured from young to estimate their growth. Meanwhile BAM have to step up it's own long term plans and really blood the talents from Sport Schools. No use going up to Sports Schools and not be given a chance to participate in Open tournaments. And the older guys who don't perform should be retired or converted to sparring partner/coaches.
Biggest win Robertson/Emms All the other winners were expected or half-expected to win anyway. Robertson/Emms came out of their recent doldrums to blast their way to the title. With Zhang/Gao, Widianto/Natsir, Sudket/Saralee around, I for one did not give them much hope at the beginning. But the favourites fell by the wayside, and with the additional luck that both Eriksen/Shjoldager and Lee/Lee were unable to attend, the English pair were undoubtedly the best mixed pair that week. Notable: Petra Overzier over Wang Chen and Jiang Yanjiao Country: England (way above expectation) and China (a bit above expectation) Biggest loss Indonesia, followed by Malaysia, Denmark and Korea. Four of the five supposed giants of badminton. Undermined mostly by China, England and unforeseen circumstances that led to withdrawals. (Taufik, LCW, PG, LHI all lost to Chinese. Even Sony, Hafiz, ParkSH, KBH lost to Chinese. CTF/LWW lost to Kido/Setiawan who lost to Blair/Clark who beat JR/LP. JE/MLH lost to Cai/Fu. Widianto/Natsir lost to Koo/Wong who lost to Clark/Kellogg. Notable: Widianto/Natsir were one of the firm favourites but lost to an unseeded (but admittedly dangerous) pair.
everyone is a winner despite their defeat in WC... I think this thread is a bit inappropriate The only losers are fans who supported their heroes who were KO in early rounds lol....
