I remember the last the World Championships were held in London, Korea had strong contenders in different disciplines, not least of all Kim Dong Moon and Ra Kyung Min. Now they have a skeleton team, I was there for 8 hours on day 1 and didn't see a single player from Korea. Did they not qualify because they were not enough good? I saw so many players from "lesser" countries like Mexico, Russia, Croatia, Spain and Italy, but not one single Korean. Weird... I was impressed by some of the Russian and Indian players I saw. I think if the sport gains popularity in these 2 countries, it's going to be good for the game. We need Putin to do one of his macho photo shoots playing badminton!
Korea is still strong! I went there late, about 7:30pm and saw Park Sung Hwan and Shon Wan Ho playing. Also Saw Lee Yong Dae and Ko Sung Hyun sitting with the audience, Ko Sung Hyun was wearing glasses, trying to disguise... I suppose Korean women won Sudirman cup last years, not other countries has even come close to beating China.
No, China won Sudirman Cup last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that......
Kim Min Jung's injury cost them one WD entry. They had another pair that could have qualified but they hadn't played together in ages. For WD, they also had hardly any pairs that had been playing together consistently before the May qualification cutoff. The two Lees' retirements after the Asian Games did a number on the combinations. Same for mixed doubles, where they had 3 defunct pairs that qualified but they chose not to send the old pairs and sent the new ones to the U.S. and Canada Opens instead. They had 3 in MS, 3 in MD and 2 in WS. That's not too bad.