PETALING JAYA: Former national men's doubles top pair of Chan Chong Ming-Chew Choon Eng moved up six rungs in the world rankings to keep alive their slim hopes of featuring in the Athens Olympic Games.

In the latest world rankings released yesterday, the duo, who were at 28th spot leapt to the 22nd spot.

They will now have to redouble their efforts in the Asian Badminton Championships (ABC) from April 20-25 at the Kuala Lumpur Badminton Stadium to get into the top 16.

The ABC is the last tournament offering Olympic qualifying points for Asians. Only the top 16 pairs in the world rankings are assured of places in the Olympics after the April 30 deadline.

A total of 172 badminton players will compete in the Olympics –29 players in the men's and women's singles and 19 pairs in the three doubles events.

After confirming the top 16, the IBF will then select the remaining players, who are ranked 17th to 64 to fill the other three places.

All-England runners-up Choong Tan Fook-Lee Wan Wah, who are ranked fourth in the world, are assured of their place.

As expected, Malaysia's top three singles players - Wong Choong Hann, Mohd Roslin Hashim and Lee Chong Wei – remained in the top 16.

Except for Chong Wei in 12th position, there were slight changes in the positions of his two other senior compatriots. Choong Hann moved one rung to world number three spot while Roslin, moved three rungs to world number 11th spot.

TheStar

Unsure if they can still qualify for the olympics even though they entered semis for the ABC.

Anyone has any ideas?

Unsure if they can still qualify for the olympics even though they entered semis for the ABC.

Anyone has any ideas?

I think they will be ranked 21 later this week. Will that be enough? Let's see. In total, we will have 19 pairs. 1 from Host nation (18 left), 1 each from Africa, Oceania and Americas (15 left).

The 15 remaining places will come from the top 16. There are probably going to be 4 Indonesian pairs in the top 16, so all pairs up to ranked 16 will be offered places.

But because a number of players play in two events, there are additional places. Going by rankings we have today, at 17, Lamp/Boe can't go because two Danish pairs are already in (unless they can get themselves into top 16). At 18, Liu/Njoto will be first standby, then Ohtsuka/Masuda. Ranked 20, Han/Bach are the top from Americas so, they will be in. At 21, Chan/Chew will be the third standby. Will they go to Athens? You tell me.

This is interesting because Wong/Chin in women's doubles will be in the same situation. They were also in the semifinals of the ABC, which may prove to be their lucky break.

But it all depends on how IBF will allocate the remaining places. Will they allocate evenly among all events? Or not? There is no official ruling on this. It is totally up to IBF's discretion, so we'll have to wait with baited breath and see.