Simple stupid question

[hm...]

I have a simple stupid question which bothers me for a long time.

The question is simple:
What's the prize money for Sudirman Cup?
for WorldChampionship?
for Thomas Cup?
for Uber Cup?
and for Olympic games?

I've tried hard to find the answer from the web. But no luck.
All these games are 7 star tournaments (the only highest tournaments!!!)
If there is no prize money for these game, these games will hurt the badminton professional tournaments.

By the way, these tournaments are very very bad. The champions are not even the best among the world. All the qualifiers for the tournaments are just handpicked by local badminton organization. For example last Olympic game, Ji Xingpeng from China got the Gold medal. But he never got China Champion himself, even very few fans knew him before. I'm not saying Ji's not good, but a lot of better players inside China, like Big Four: Chen Hong, Luo Yigang (these two hold highest win percentages among Chinese players), Chen Gang (China national champion), and Dong Jiong (China open champion), don't have any chance to play at Olympic.

Now history repeats again. Only four players can go Worldchampionships. Yong Hock Kin doesn't have his chance. Inside China, Chen Hong, Luo Yigang, and Xiao Hui just took the top three positions in the recent national game, but only Chen Hong got the chance. Ji Xingpeng and Xia Xuanze got more chances not because they are better, only because they are the proteges of the current Chinese badminton head coach.

By the way, no professional tennis player takes Olympic seriously.

[Wedge]

what you said about tennis.. thats true..

thats why i really have no wish to watch tennis in the Olympics.. or even to have it as a part of the games.

[Adel]

The games you listed are rated 7 stars more for prestige than anything else. There is no prize money involved, unless the national badminton associations of each country decide to reward their players.

I can't really comment on the Chinese players. I suppose chalking up wins during internal competitions isn't enough; they must be able to take on the rest of the world. How have Chen Gang and Luo Yigang performed during Open tournaments against foreign players?

As for Ji Xinpeng's selection, I remember reading on the Chinabadminton forum some really nasty (and rather sadistically amusing) comments that he plays like a woman and that if there was another spot for the women's singles, he was bound to get in. In a way, I felt rather gratified that he managed to prove all his critics wrong by winning the gold.

[hm...]

Thanks for your reply and the information.

There is just a small misunderstanding here. I didn't mean Chen Gang and Luo Yigang have more chances to beat foreign players. Not at all. Instead, I meant since Chen Gang and Luo Yigang can beat Ji Xingpeng, therefore Ji's doubt of being the best among all players worldwide. For the openness and fairness of competition, qualifiers of any tournaments, including Olympics, should be generated by qualification matches which everybody has equal opportunity to participate, instead of hand-picked by coaches. This is not a team game, it is about who's the best individual player on the earth. Luo Yigang, was ranked 7th that time, didn't have a chance to play.

If Luo Yigang, Chen Gang, and the real best 64 players had fought at Olympics, even Luo beat Ji, then Gade beat Luo, If it had been true, Gade would be a better one (even though Ji can beat him).

Single is about individual, it is NOT a team competition, it is NOT one nation vs another nation. It is just Ji vs Gade, Gade vs Luo, Luo vs Chen...., nothing more!

Thanks again for your answer.

[Adel]

That's okay. No misunderstanding. Actually I too feel a bit sorry for all those players that don't get to participate even though they qualify. It just stems from each country being allowed to send only 3 pairs/players, to prevent country/region domination in the sport.

Just a funnie here: if Luo bts Ji, Gade bts Luo and Ji is capable of beating Gade but doesn't, because they don't get a chance to meet, who's considered the best player? I don't know how to rate "THE best player in the world". I suppose it really depends on your form at the moment.

As for whether the Olympics is nation vs nation, or individual vs individual, I do hope it was the latter as well. But national pride happens to be at stake here. Thus all that fuss about the ball-letting incident in the WS (sorry to mention this again). Also why Sun Jun was given a spot despite his world ranking having plummeted to... how much??? I think the Chinese team felt he was better suited to take on the rest of the world, in terms of skills and experience, and that is despite his long-standing imjury.