Since badminton became an official sport at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the women's singles event has produced a total of seven gold medals. Gong Zhichao successfully defeated Martin at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, thus beginning a powerful ruling dynasty in the national women's singles. The Chinese badminton team won a total of 4 women's singles Olympic gold medals.
Behind the domination of the women's singles field, it is natural that the strong strength of the national feather and the strength of the team. However, sometimes there are also happy worries about the determination of Olympic candidates. For example, before the tokyo Olympics list was announced, Chen Yufei's "first sister" status was difficult to shake, occupying a quota is not a problem, but between He Bingjiao and Wang Zhiyi, two players who are qualified to participate in the competition, the coaching team experienced a break.
Sydney Olympics: The beginning of "Troubles"
The happiness of the national women's singles should start at the Sydney Olympics, however, the fierce competition expected did not come as expected, because Wang Chen lost the 1998 Uber Cup squad, and then left the national team, so that the original 4-out-of-3 problem was solved.
Wang Chen's defeat in the Uber Cup lineup of that year actually had a clue. The 1996 Uber Cup was Wang Chen's first high-level team event, but she lost to Indonesia's Zhang Haili in two sets in the final, which also laid the groundwork for the Olympic defeat two years later. Later, before the 1998 Uber Cup roster was announced, the team gave up Wang Chen after full consideration and chose veteran Han Jingna, which directly led to the former leaving the national team at the age of 23, and the absence from the Sydney Olympic Games also ended their future of the Chinese badminton team. Later stories must be well known to everyone, Xiang sister Gong Zhichao finally crushed the Danish Martin's dream of breaking through the Chinese women's singles encirclement and suppression in Sydney.
Beijing Olympics: World Championships lost
The real competition was the Beijing Olympic Games, where Guoyu had many famous players in the squad. Among the three World Championship champions produced in this Olympic cycle, Xie Xingfang won 2 of them, the other champion belonged to Zhu Lin, and also in the competition sequence were the Athens Olympic women's singles champion Zhang Ning, and the young player Lu Lan who withstood the test in the Uber Cup.
Xie Xingfang was naturally selected for the Beijing Olympic Team because of her excellent performance, but the competition for the remaining 2 places was quite fierce. Zhang Ning, the defending champion who was plagued by injuries this year, was still pumping fluids from his knees even 100 days before the Olympics, so he missed the Uber Cup in May. It was in this team competition that the different fates of Lu Lan and Zhu Lin were laid. When the former played the second singles, he not only won all 4 games, but also withstood the pressure when Xie Xingfang once lost a single. It was with 100% victory and good psychological quality that Lu Lan finally squeezed out the 2007 World Championship champion Zhu Lin.
London Olympics: Talented girls emerge
Four years later, in the fog capital of London, if you look at it in hindsight, the selection of the women's singles will undoubtedly play a decisive role in the final hardware of the national feather, and it can even be said to be the most important weight.
According to the rules of the BWF at that time, only three of them were able to eventually go to London, and the results of the foreign war became a key factor in influencing the final candidates. Wang Yihan, who has the highest and more than 90% external victory rate among the four, has become the 2011 World Champion under the premise of imaginary enemies such as Denmark's Rasmussen, Germany's Schenck, and India's Neville, the 2011 World Championship champion became the key figure in the London gold medal.
In addition to Wang Yihan steadily getting a place, the competition for the other 2 seats is unprecedentedly fierce. Although Wang Xin once lost the title of "Empress of foreign wars", she will not be the candidate that the coaching team wants to give up.
Li Xuerui's emergence was undoubtedly a very surprising choice at that time, if the Olympic Games were held a year in advance, Wang Shixian would undoubtedly stand under the banner of the five rings with her teammates Wang Yihan and Wang Xin. However, entering 2012, the sudden rise of Li Xuerui let the troubles of happiness follow.
Although there is not much experience in the World Series, Li Xuerui, who has soared in her performance in the past year and won a terrifying 30 consecutive victories, has undoubted advantages in the contrast with Wang Shixian's sluggish foreign war. In the end, this candidate proved to be a high chess player, and Li Xuerui became the person who finally reached the highest podium in London.
Rio Olympics: Choose 2 out of 4 to 3
After Wang Shixian's defeat, many people pinned their hopes on the fact that she was still young and would realize her dream in Rio in four years. However, contrary to expectations, in four years, fate and rules once again made a joke with Wang Shixian, only this time to change competitors.
The BWF made a major adjustment to the original qualification before the Rio Olympics, and the singles quota of the same association was reduced from the initial full three to two, on the grounds that more associations could participate in the Olympic Games, and the direct consequence of this downsizing was that the competition for women's singles candidates was more intense.
In fact, since entering the Rio Olympic cycle, the living environment of the national women's singles has begun to become gradually worse, and there are strong external enemies that are obvious signs of this period. At the 2013 World Championships in Guangzhou, Wang Yihan and Wang Shixian both lost to Xin Dehu, and Li Xuerui lost to the 18-year-old Ratchano in the final. If the defeat at that time can be covered by adjusting the state after the Olympic Games, then in the next two years of the World Championships, first Li Xuerui lost again in the final, and in 2015, no one reached the final four of the Jakarta World Championships, which showed that at this stage of the national feather, it has lost its previous advantages and is facing the impact from different forces.
"Two kings and one Lee" is still the protagonist of the Rio Olympic Games, and Li Xuerui was the first to successfully land with better points competition results. In the white-hot competition between Wang Shixian and Wang Yihan, the former lost to Neville in the last Asian Championship quarterfinals, which directly led to his own passive, and Wang Yihan won the final moment of the championship by defeating Li Xuerui. Wang Shixian has become a loser in the battle for places in two consecutive Olympic Games, which is lamentable.
Tokyo Olympics: The third person to emerge
Time has come to Tokyo, and although the Olympic Games have been delayed by a year due to the epidemic, the competition for the national women's singles candidate is still quite fierce. The women's singles group has ushered in a recovery after coming out of the pain of losing the Uber Cup in 2018, especially Chen Yufei, through the experience of the finals, the British and the Sudirman Cup in the past two years, she can now compete with dai Ziying, Ma Lin and other top players, becoming the "first sister" of women's singles without doubt.
He Bingjiao, who is a year older than Chen Yufei, became famous earlier, although disappointment and hope coexisted on the road to growth, and the championship record in recent years was relatively small. However, through more than a year of intensive training, He Bingjiao has already changed her appearance, strictly demanding herself from herself, not only slimming down successfully, but also winning Wang Zhiyi and Chen Yufei in the team confrontation in Lingshui is the best evidence.
Chen Yufei and He Bingjiao are undoubtedly the most likely candidates to get Olympic tickets at the moment, the former as the most successful women's singles player in the Tokyo cycle, the selection is naturally no problem, the latter Although the winning rate of the top masters was not high, but after a long period of hard training, many people began to have some expectations for He Bingjiao's Tokyo prospects, of course, there is another candidate that cannot be ignored - Wang Zhiyi.
Although the experience of international competitions is inferior to that of Chen Yufei and He Bingjiao, the youngest of the three, In the only few high-level competitions, Xiao Wang has a proud resume of killing Akane Yamaguchi and Rachano. At last year's national championship, she and Chen Yufei fought hard to win each of the two games. If the Olympic Games had not been postponed because of the new crown epidemic, perhaps Wang Zhiyi would have been Li Xuerui 9 years ago, winning the Olympic tickets in a cry of surprise.
There is often a saying among coaches: It is better to have a choice than not to choose. As the only group in this Olympic Games with room for personnel selection, the results of the 3 choices and 2 of the national women's singles group have been settled, and Chen Yufei and He Bingjiao represented the national women's singles team in Tokyo. Before the list was announced, although it seemed that there was little suspense, it objectively enhanced the competitive atmosphere of the entire group and achieved the purpose of mutual promotion and progress.
Looking forward to the national women's singles can create glory in Tokyo!
The above image is an expansion pack
This article is from the July 2021 issue