Men's singles star Shi Yuqi will lead China's charge at the Paris Olympics. [Photo/Xinhua]
Editor's note: With the Olympic stage set, and golden glory beckoning, Chinese athletes have been going all-out to ensure it will be a medal-laden campaign at Paris 2024.
Watch out! The most dominant force in badminton is all set to reign supreme at the Olympics again.
With its collective strength restored and tested at recent major tournaments, the Chinese badminton team is primed and looking to serve up a gold-laden campaign at the Paris Olympics, leaning on a depth and diversity that no other contenders can match.
Led by the red-hot men's singles star Shi Yuqi, who has just replaced Danish ace Viktor Axelsen as the new world No 1, Team China now dominates the world rankings in four of the five events, with women's singles the only discipline topped by a foreign competitor — South Korea's reigning world champion An Se-young.
Team China's "three-peat" — winning the world mixed team title at the Sudirman Cup and the men's and women's team crowns at the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals, respectively — over the past 13 months has raised high hopes that a clean sweep of all five golds at the Olympics, achieved only once in history by the invincible Chinese squad at London 2012, is possible in the French capital.
Zhang Jun, president of the Chinese Badminton Association, did not mince words about Team China's Paris ambition.
"Of course we will try our best to compete for gold in all five events," Zhang said at the launch of the "Popular Badminton" International Legends Tour in Guangzhou on Monday.
"Our final preparation is going well. Physically, the players are all healthy and with no injury concerns. We've tailored specific training plans for each athlete, targeting their main opponents.
"We just have to help our athletes stay focused, try to take the pressure off them and approach everything as we normally would," said Zhang, who won back-to-back mixed doubles Olympic titles with partner Gao Ling at the 2000 and 2004 Games.
Clockwise from top: Women's doubles queens Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan; rising men's doubles pair Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang; and world No 1 mixed duo Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong are striving to cement China's status as a badminton powerhouse at the Paris Olympics. [Photo/Xinhua]
Shi's time to peak
As China's first men's world No 1 since retired Olympic champion Chen Long in 2016, Shi has been enjoying a dream season, which saw him win four singles titles in five finals on the BWF World Tour and help the Chinese men's squad win its 11th Thomas Cup last month in Chengdu.
Hailed as the successor of the legendary Lin "Super" Dan and Chen, Shi's career has suffered a series of setbacks, including three surgeries and a disciplinary suspension, which had threatened to derail his career before it fully took off. The spell of misfortune, however, has simply proved to be a test on his path to something great, as a newfound momentum is building at just the right time.
"Mentally, I've become more mature and I'm much more motivated again with the Olympics approaching. I will cherish the opportunity and go all-out to try to reach the top step of the podium," said the 28-year-old.
Shi's attempt to win it all in Paris will face a stern challenge from defending Olympic champion Axelsen, who leads 9-3 head-to-head against Shi, but has suffered two straight losses to the Chinese star and conceded the top ranking spot after spending 132 weeks there.
Defending Asian champion Jonatan Christie of Indonesia has emerged as another serious threat, having upset Shi twice this year in the All England Open semifinals and Asian championships quarterfinals.
Having almost seen it and done it all at the elite level, former singles world champion Zhao Jianhua encouraged Shi to embrace the pressure and draw power from within.
"The pressure of competing at the Olympics and representing your country only once every four years is huge. Yet, all the top athletes have been conditioned to live with it and get motivated by it," said Zhao, a 59-year-old legend who won back-to-back Asian Games singles titles in 1986 and 1990.
"For Shi, I hope he's improved his mental game well enough to be able to deliver under pressure at the Olympics."
Reigning Olympic champion Chen Yufei is bidding to write her name into history. [Photo/Xinhua]
Chasing history
In women's singles, reigning Olympic champion Chen Yufei is bidding to write her name into history, as she aims to become just the second woman of all time to retain her Olympic gold, following in the footsteps of Hall of Famer Zhang Ning, who achieved the feat in 2004 and 2008.
South Korea's world and Asian Games champion An is the biggest threat to Chen's ambition.
World No 3 Tai Tzu-ying of Chinese Taipei, Japan's two-time world champion Akane Yamaguchi and Spanish veteran Caroline Marin, the first and only non-Asian Olympic women's singles champion (Rio 2016), are all legitimate medal contenders as well, each coveting Chen's title.
"To stay healthy and control the little errors in training and competition. That's my priority leading up to Paris. As long as I take care of myself and deliver my best, I am confident that I still have a good chance to defend my title," Chen said last month after helping Team China lift a record-extending 16th Uber Cup title in Chengdu.
"This process will be very difficult for sure," said Chen, who just posted consecutive wins against Marin and An to clinch her 17th career title on the BWF tour at the Indonesia Open earlier this month.
"It's about taking things one step at a time, and handling every detail in the process as I strive to achieve this goal."
In doubles, China's world No 1 mixed pair Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong will try to make up for the only missing trophy in their glittering cabinet — an Olympic gold medal.
Women's doubles queens Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan are also heading to Paris on a redemption mission, as the four-time world champion duo looks to cap what might be their final Olympics in gold. They will need to put their surprising defeat to Indonesia's Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu in the final at Tokyo 2020 behind them to do so.
The men's doubles in Paris will see perhaps the most open medal fight among all five events, with China's young pair Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang, both born in the early 2000s, challenging an experienced field of opponents from South Korea, India, Malaysia and Denmark.
The badminton tournament takes place from July 27 to Aug 5 at the Porte de La Chapelle Arena, involving 172 athletes.
