Friday, August 17, 2012

Li Yong Bo's Amazing Feat at the 2012 Olympics Badminton

The Badminton event at the 2012 Olympics must have created a history of sorts that may remain unsurpassed ever :

1) China sweeping all five gold medals
2) Lin Dan defending his Gold Medal
3) Cai Yun and Fu Hai Feng becoming the first Men's Doubles pair from China to win an Olympic Gold
4) Zhao Yun Lei becoming the first player to win twin golds in 1 Olympic year .

 Not only would each record be unsurpassed in China after Li moves on to develop his badminton school business but it would probably be unsurpassed by other countries in the future.

Li Yong Bo thus leaves an impeccable record for China badminton, from rescuing a shattered team after the 1992 Thomas Cup to its current glory that even surpasses what Hou Jia Chang did with Yang Yang,Zhao Jian Hua and Li Yong Bo and Tian Bing Yi.

After all these achievements were not without its shortcomings,with scandals in the 90s and the attempt to humiliate badminton in the 2012 Olympics by setting a trap in the form of round robin matches.Li had to be ruthless to survive in ultra competitive China and also to weather the storm from jealous rivals in the international arena who saw their influence fading and having to live with Li's American style "kick ass" attitude to competitive sports.Not many people remember history in that many great achievements have not been achieved without some form of ruthlessness and tough and sometimes ungentlemanly tactics.After all the world would not be what it is today if not for Western Imperialism in the past with even worse exponents of
bad ass behaviour like Hitler,George Bush, Richard Nixon to name just a few.Or not to mention the badminton match fixings Indonesia was famous for in the 70s.

What now after the Olympics? Downhill all the way starting with China and then trickling down to the rest of the world :
1) More balance in Gold Medals amongst other nations
2) The death of Men's Singles after Lin Dan and Li Chong Wei leave international badminton.The only player likely to bring some sparks would be Wang Zheng Ming and Victor Axelsen. Expect to see some bland fare from Chen Long in the immediate future.
3) The demise of Men's Doubles pairs from China with Korea and possibly Thailand coming to the fore.
4) Li Xue Rui and Wang Yi Han ruling for a few years with challenges from Ratchanok,Tai Tzu Ying and Sindhu.
5) China continuing to churn out top pairs in Women's Doubles and Mixed Doubles from its factory,with the rest of the world hardly taking any interest.
6) The rise of Japan,Thailand , India and Taiwan to challenge China.

I think Li Yong Bo has achieved all that needs to be achieved,in fact he has over-achieved. Whether he applies the brakes or whatever is out of the question as he alone cannot buck worldwide trends.With the slide in total dominance maybe it is timely for China to stop behaving like the classic Ugly American or Yankee or like a Third World country with a chip on its shoulder, at least in Badminton, by being more gracious and generous in sharing the spoils with other nations and instead re-channel its resources into building world beating athletes in the sports of affluent countries such as Track and Field,Swimming, Cycling,Sailing,Canoeing, etc.etc. Whatever team tactics planned may no longer work,it would be smarter to focus more on quality players rather than quantity and a lot in this regard can be learned from what is done currently in Table Tennis.

 It is perhaps timely for the big bad lion to stop hoarding the kill but to allow the packs of  scheming hyenas and coyotes to have a bite of the prime chunks after all this is happening everywhere in all walks of life,especially when the ruling association has been infiltrated by foxes trying to revive the good old days of imperialism ever ready to pander to the wishes of the hungry packs.

Foxes and packs alike have forgotten an important detail, it is one thing to have mass participation, ultimately it is the big bucks from the big successful players and nations that drives sports forward.All these politicking is all to familiar to us living in a region and nation run by jackals in the majority,lazy and cunning ever ready to live off the success of others and pinching a free ride,ostracising the outstanding and branding them as show-off and arrogant,too narrow minded to understand that undermining successful people is ultimately shooting one's own foot.

And in case you feel offended the coyotes,hyenas referred to are not those who love the game and want to excel in it, but  the noisy ,narrow minded fanatics and losers who will stop at nothing to sabotage their victors.
     

Friday, August 10, 2012

Lin Dan after the 2012 Olympics

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

A Profile of a Fanatical, Immature,Irrational Malaysian Badminton Fan

http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/2012/8/5/columnists/onthebeat/11800010&sec=On%20The%20Beat

Here's one of the rants of this species with a lot of boo boos in content :
1) Lin Dan is a Hakka
2) Lin Dan was never involved in a scuffle with Lee Hyun Il
3) Lin Dan wanted to finish the AE quickly so that he can go shopping not as disrespect to LCW but more because the tournament is not a priority to him
4) A lot of the bad boy behaviour happened many years ago, no one should hold it against him as we all grow up
5) It looks like a lot of ranting and, there is no emphasis on badminton and the players' abilities,not only is it bad journalism filled with errors and misconceptions but should be coming from cheap politicians with some kind of agenda not related to sports.
 Perhaps this nut is unaware that Lin Dan was Badminton's representative at the Laurette awards, in the company of Novak of Tennis and Usain Bolt of Athletics, in effect bad-mouthing a legend of badminton.
  With people like this, its no wonder that badminton in Malaysia is in bad shape, one does not win on wishful thinking and politicking and bad-mouthing rivals like the politicians with their sex tapes.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

2012 Olympics Badminton Women Doubles Group Matches Fiasco

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/eight-charged-throwing-olympic-badminton-matches-034357061.html

That was a really dumb thing to do.Right during the Olympics and obviously showing their defiance just as what happened in the Thomas and Uber Cup preliminaries when some teams played to lose.Surely there are better ways to lose,for eg. just using it as a practice match.No one can help them now,but the badminton body should have more sense to realise that it was a disaster waiting to happen by insisting on all those group matches.
Even more silly was focussing the TV camera on the lesser players even at the advanced stages when more exciting games were being played,depriving millions of watching classic encounters on the TV.Lesser players can be seen regularly on the regular tournaments!Whatever happened to excellence in sports or is sports all about marketing?