Does anyone know if Gade has seriously bulked up his right leg muscles recently? Compare this picture from the Sudirman Cup this year
with this one from worldbadminton.net.....is this an illusion or not? If not, thats some serious leg muscles!!!
I dont know if he has but on his own website he has said that after his comeback november 2002 to WC august 2003 he has trained differently from his usual program. Because of the the differrent training he wasn't as fast as before and has just recently starting to build up his speed which also can be seen now . But perhaps the different training was physical training for his legs? who knows?
The first photo is taken from an angle where the thigh looks thinnest, whereas the second photo is taken from an angle where the thigh looks thickest. In that sense I think the photos lie. However, it's plausible that he has built up some extra muscle to protect his knee. A balanced muscular build is actually a good protection against joint injuries.
Whatever. Peter Gade has beaten Chen Hong at the China Open now in progress. Looks like Peter is finally crawling his way up the rankings whereas Chen Hong is on his way down. Wonder whether it has to do with girl friends or the lack of it. Of course Peter has been troubled by injuries but he has also long parted ways with Camilla Martin and perhaps this helps him to remain focussed in his training and his matches. On the other hand, Chen Hong has been courting Gao Ling recently and this may have distracted him from his badminton ambitions. Coincidently, it was reported this week that Thailand's men singles tennis idol is compelled to drop his actress (?) girlfriend on the advice of his dad so that he can continue to win honours for Thailand at the world stage. We need to follow the performance of Gao Ling more closely to see whether romances have any adverse impact on lady athletes as they do on the guys.