UNDEFEATED since last October, Lin Dan is the World No 1 and All-England champion but he is still not guaranteed of a place in the Chinese squad for the Olympic Games in Athens on Aug 16-29. In fact, he may not be in the squad for the Olympics at all. "It is only March and there are plenty of competitions left from now until the Olympics. "We will only make the final selection in July," said China head coach Li Yongbo. "He may win now, but we have three or four other players who are also good. As such, we will look into several factors first, before deciding on our final squad." Lin Dan beat Denmark's Peter Gade Christensen for the All-England men's singles title on Sunday to add to his collection of winners' medals that dates back to the Hong Kong Open last October. The Chinese followed it up by bagging the China Open and Denmark Open, and back to back wins at the Swiss Open and All-England championships. But Yongbo was unimpressed and declared :"We have the best players in the world and we are in no hurry to name the squad." "Several players lost early in Birmingham but this is because they have been playing in so many matches and tournaments of late. "Physically, they are unable to recover sufficiently for the next tournament and this resulted in them losing. But our objective is the Olympics, and there is time for the players to rest and return stronger," said Yongbo. World champion Xia Xuanze was an early casualty, losing to Wales' Richard Vaughan in the second round, while last year's Singapore and Malaysia Opens champion Chen Hong was gunned down by Christensen in the third round. Bao Chunlai was the other early round casualty when he lost to unheralded Aamir Ghaffar of England in the second round. According to the Olympic qualification rules, if a nation has four players in the top 16 bracket in the world, that country will be allowed to enter three players, irrespective of their ranking. For China, Lin Dan is the World No 1 while Chen Hong, Xia, and Bao Chunlai were ranked third, fifth and eighth in the world at the start of the All-England. China have another player ranked 12th in the world, Chen Yu, who lost to Malaysia's Lee Tsuen Seng in the first round. And with so much talent at his disposal, Yongbo does not want any of the players to take things for granted. "There is keen competition amongst the players to be selected for the Olympics, and naming the squad early may make a player complacent," added Yongbo. "Which is why we will leave it until July to name the squad."
well, if china are looking for any consistency in their men's singles olympic challenge, they need look no further than Lin Dan at the moment. And I think Lin Dan can only become more potent in the future after honing his skills and gaining much extra experience in the tournaments of late. The other men's singles players at Li YB's disposal are not as strong all round as Lin Dan e.g. Chen Hong is always in rouble against fast, fit players with good defence e.g. Peter Gade, Taufik and Sony Dwi Kuncoro, whilst Bao and Xia are imperious when on form but sadly this is not a very common phenomonen.
Hmm maybe it will be a different story when comes to Olympic. Li Yong Bo might be resting his other player en route to Olympics.
Chen Yu didnt lose to lee tseung seng in first round. I thought he beat wu yu yong in first round, tseung in second,and lee hyunil in third He only lost in quarters to taufik.
