ranking doesn't ALWAYS justify a player's skill... i remember TH going into the WC ranking 32..lol beating players higher than him
mmm.. .i do support chinese players as well as my home country players.. so i'm not only supporting my home country team!! hehe
I think Lee HI will surprise everyone this time, because he is the one who prepared for this AG the earliest and longest! In order to preparing this Doha game, he skipped so many tournaments, including Tokyo open, China open, World Cup, Lux Open, Denmark open, Dutch open,..., Some of you may think Dutch open is not important, but that kind of tournaments are usually reserved for Lee HI. He used to win those small tournaments in Europe. Now he sacrificed all these, I think he must have developed some new lethal weapon for the Doha AG. Let's see.
Maybe taufik will come back ..... who knows? but i'll still support chong wei....... own country's player mar
I bet the lethal weapon is something that most asian badminton players lack and is called "stamina"... especially consider the number of games they have to play in order to win the asian games' individual and team event. Honestly, it just seems to be missing alot since Asian games limits the competitors only within Asia, and even worse to 2 top players from each country... I can't even see how people can consider it being important except it is held every 4 years... Another words, more "amateur" like players to be beaten up in the earlier rounds by the top players, and the champ probably only have to play like 2 hard games to win the title... I will support any player from outside of Malaysia and Indo... I just want to see how their badminton federations respond to yet another failure... Go China and Korea!!! even Japan and Hong Kong!!!
you are absolutely right, bananaboy. Asian games title is the least valuable in my mind also. Even not the top 2 for each county. None of World number 3,4,5 will be there.
The so called Asian games has only 2 players out of the top 5 in the world, and only about 20 people or less totally in the competition, everyone knows how poor level it is!!! Comparing to all England open, with 9 or 10 best in the top 10, and more than 80 people totally. so if all England is just a 4 star, then I think the AG should be ranked just 1 star (20 people comparing to 80 people, 2 best comparing to 10). So that's it, the AG, is just a 1 star tournament, nothing more. Only thing special, as you mentioned, is that it's held once in four years.
it's like tennis at Olympics. The AG is just important for those countries Korea, INA, and MAS to collect Gold for their countries. Korea needs the Gold to beat Japan in total number of gold, INA and MAS to the gold because badminton is just one of very few fields they can grab gold. For badminton itself, AG is nothing. Most other countries don't care the gold, and players don't care either since there is NO prize at all. There is even no points either. Why players should play for? For nothing! So playing the AG is not even a professional's professional job.
Dude, guess who's funding the players, training them and sending them to tournaments? It's their respective badminton associations. Without them, we don't see these players on the circuit. You should also understand there is a certain amount of honour to represent your country. Besides, there are monetary rewards from a number of countries for bringing back Gold, Silver and Bronze. So your assertion on the players playing for nothing is far from the truth. And I further beg to differ, I'll bet many players care.
for me, the AG is about pride and glory.. forget about the money.. because not all players think about that... and who are you to know what these professional players are thinking of?...
Well...you are probably not an Asian (or living in Asia). As Asians, a gold in the AG is second only to the Olympics in terms of individual achievement. Your comparison is too simplistic I bet many Malaysians, Thais, Koreans, Japanese or even Chinese will echo my view. When it comes to bragging rights, the number of Golds in AG is an important criteria!
