Tournament Analysis – Beijing (Part 2)

Crouching China, Hidden Medals?
Will China sweep all 5 gold medals in their home event?

China, the modern badminton superpower, will attempt to do the undoable in badminton – to sweep all 5 gold medals on offer. Can anyone stop their assault on those medals?

Men Singles – Lin Dan is a strong medal hope, with Bao Chunlai and Chen Jin as path-clearers and backups. Lin Dan, who was tipped to win in Athens 3 years ago, is gunning for one of the titles that he hasn’t been able to get. He has credible reigning Olympic Champion Taufik Hidayat in his way, although Hidayat appears to be plagued by a ‘runner-up’ disease. However, Lee Chong Wei appears to be superdan’s attempt at his first Olympic title. Then again, Taufik always rises to the occasion, and is able to produce stunning results at opportune times. Will Taufik or Chong Wei deny Lin in his bid to be the Olympic Champion?

Men Doubles – Appears to be the weakest link among the 5 titles. With credible resistance from Koo Kien Keat/Tan Boon Heong, Markis Kido/Hendra Setiawan, Jung Jae Sung/Lee Yong Dae, Tony Gunawan/Candra Wijaya, and last but not least, Choong Tan Fook/Lee Wan Wah, can local hopes Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng pull it off? Despite everything that has been said about Cai and Fu, I have to admit that China still have a pretty decent chance at the title, but this is China’s biggest headache in its bid to sweep all the titles.

Women Singles – China should win this one. Unless there is a massive collapse in the Chinese ranks, the only question we should is Xie Xingfang or Zhang Ning? I strongly believe Zhang still has it in her to win her second consecutive Olympic title, but discounting Xie would be foolish of me. Hard to say. Super veteran or semi veteran? Besides this, youngster Zhu Lin and reigning world champion should be good backup if one of the badminton queens fail.

Women Doubles – Again, I don’t see how China can lose this title. It naturally begs the question: who? With a massive arsenal including Gao Ling/Huang Sui, Zhang Jiewen/Yang Wei, Zhang Yawen/Wei Yili, the only people that can deny the Chinese women from this title is perhaps, Korean pair Lee/Lee or Indonesian pair Natsir/Marrisa. Will Lee Yongbo’s girls collapse like they did in China Masters this year? It is highly unlikely, but the chance for the upset is there.

Mixed Doubles – This would be another interesting contest between Gao Ling/Zheng Bo and Lilyana Natsir/Nova Widianto. Will the Chinese world number prevail over the Indonesian world number 2? Can the Indonesians deny the Chinese for the second time, after their win in the world championships? In addition to this, Gao and Zheng appear to be going through a rough patch, as they have not featured in several tournaments although they’ve won the recent Japan Open.

For Part 1, go here:

The Badminton Blog - Predictions in Beijing PART 1