Lin Dan and Saina Nehwal? They both named by BBC Sport as the worldwide 2012 Olympics title contenders. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/london_2012/14281481.stm
with all the sport person over the world for all sports, BBC named 2 badminton players out of the 50 altogether. and most likely the 2 badminton title contenders they named wouldn't be the No 1 seed at the Games. So, does the BBC knows something that we don't?
Well they know that Lin Dan is probably come good and beat Lee Chong Wei for the final time in London in August... Saina Nehwal is just a crazy choice. Should have picked a Wang, but then again I don't think they wanted to pick two people from the same country...
Of course we don’t have the numbers for the forthcoming Olympics yet. We can base upon the Beijing Games 2008, there were a total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competed in 28 sports and 302 events. For BBC to pick 50 winners out of the 10k+ athletes with 2 from badminton, as a badminton player/supporter I’m pleased. Very very pleased indeed.
They chose Lin Dan because he's cool and has the potential to create newsworthy controversy on court. They chose Saina Nehwal because she's photogenic and comes from the old Empire. To the BBC it is probably of secondary importance that LD has good chance of actually winning and SN not so much.
rather funni choice by bbc anyway... title contenders can refer to more than 1 person... for MS.. it could be the following Lin Dan Lee Chong Wei Chen Long etc.. WS.. it could be the following Wang Xin Wang Yi Han Wang Shi Xian Sainal Newal etc... its just talking.... and can be out of the air oso..