China’s Chen Long avenged his semi-final loss against Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei from four years ago, winning the gold in badminton during Saturday’s 2016 Summer Olympics action.
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Chen Long of China celebrates his victory over Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia during the men’s singles final of badminton competition at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 20, 2016.
The tall, strongly built 27-year-old Chen added the 2016 Olympic gold to his previous two gold medals, that he had bagged in the 2014 and 2015 World Championships, the latter again at the expense of the 33-year-old Lee.
Li made the comment to China-based sina.cn shortly after China’s Chen Long defeated Lee in the closely-fought badminton men’s singles final at the Rio Olympics last Saturday.
With “Super Dan” having beaten Lee in the past two gold medal finals, the pressure is on Lee to “get the monkey off his back” and finally beat Lin in the Olympic tournament. I came here early to prepare and been in Rio three weeks.
“I don’t think so”.
There was no way back for the quiet Lee and Chen celebrated by running with his shirt off to the Chinese fans at the Riocentro venue after inflicting more Olympic heartache on the Malaysian.
After beating Lee in two straight gold medal matches and with Lee retiring after the Olympics, Lin knew that Lee was going to want revenge more than ever. I played better today than I did in the 2012 Olympics and all the World Championships.
The wiry Malaysian has been ranked world number one for much of the last decade but has never won a major global title, frustrated repeatedly by 32-year-old Lin on the biggest stages.
In the semifinals on Friday morning, Lin Dan played very well, but Lee was slightly better in the end. Excellent net play allowed the Chinese player to bag the opening game at 21-18, even as Lee netted crucial shots. Lin Dan struggled in his quarterfinal matchup vs. the young but talented Srikanth Kidambi from India, while Lee Chong Wei cruised past his opponent, Chou Tien Chen from Chinese Taipei.
Despite failing to bring home the gold, national badminton champion Datuk Lee Chong Wei remains the number one hero in his father Lee Ah Chai’s heart.
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But he will have to wrestle with more inner demons when he takes on Chen, the bronze medal victor at London. “He just rose to the occasion thwarted all that I did against him”, said Chong Wei. You trained, I trained. With her gold-medal performance in Rio, the Spaniard has single-handedly put Spain on the world map of badminton and that should be noted. But no matter who wins that round, it’s the Lee-Lin match that’ll likely determine who wins gold.
