we waited and waited and finally Olympics badminton came and went with all the medals to all five events awarded. there were upset after upset from day one and numerously closely fought battles and numerous effortless fights as well. so after 8 days of Olympics badminton, did all the matches and results live up to your expectations? were you expecting more epics battles? or were you just happy that so and so won the gold medal?
Many surprises that's great! However I was hoping to see Ra Kyung Min in gold, that's a disappointment! :crying: (luckily I've just learned she has decided to continue her career two more years ) I was also hoping to catch more live badminton on TV which wasn't the case! (fed up of fencing!)
Though i am a Malaysian and Mal has not won a single medal in the Badminton events, generally the olympic was quite good. Great spectacles especially the all Korean MD final.
Great Olympics! Despite a few upsets leading to the top names not making it to the finals (Lin Dan, Kim/Ra) you have to say it was a fantastic tournament overall. Every final was great and exciting (except possibly the MS, a bit of a walkover). There were lots of great quarter-final and semi-final matchups in the men's doubles and the games were all exciting. Plus, the coverage was excellent and full time, which is rare. I've got 21 hours of badminton on tape now to watch over the next year and analyse for technical tips.
very dissapointed i'm except choong-lee to win in MD n kim-ra win XD... in MS are wong choong hann n lin dan,WD are gao ling :crying: :crying: :crying: but also intresting n fun
Sad to see big names like Lin, Bao, Kim/Ra, etc got knocked out in earlier round. However, dark horses did put on great shows, and glad to see Taufik finally utilized his talent.
Badminton-wise, yes, we get all the ingredients of a dramatic event bar the WD of course, but the highlight such as Ronald's taming of the young dragon, Zhang Ning's tough match against Mia, Kim/Ra's shock exit, are things that colours the event appropriately. It would have been different if Lin Dan just cruise to a gold, then Cai/Fu, Gao Ling/Huang Sui, Zhang Ning, Kim/Ra. Things will be too... 'predictable' then. "Oh, they won? Jolly. What's for dinner?".
The 2004 olympic (badminton) was quite good, better than previous olympic watching experience mainly because of better access live updates from more sources where as i had none before. 1. forumcast 2. some chinese games on CCTV 3. one (and only) match (WS final) on TV Opinions on results 1. I think the surprises aren't really surprises. The chinese MS team didnt had a game plan for each of their opponent so they deserve what they got. Canada sucks, no surprises here either 2. Great to see some unexpected players achieving better than expected results, it's better for the sport of badminton (ex. Nathan R & Gail E, taufik, mia audina). However, i would have much preferred watching the MD final between KDM/Ha and JR/LP
Thought it was superb. The BBC used their interactive service to put a massive amount of badminton on the telly here in the UK, but they also put a very decent amount on the 'normal' (non-digital) channel live. So from a english perspective, especially with gail and nathan reaching the final, it was excellent. However it was also good from an all round perspective. Many of us would use our knowledge to predict winners, and in some cases have them down as certainties, but frequently this did not prove the case. That can only be good for the sport. I for one thought it was a superb tournament.
Overall yes, as my favourite mens doubles Kim/Ha won the gold medal, Taufik won the men's single, which is not a surprise to me. However, it was a disappointment that Kim/Ra made an early exit and Chong/Lee failed to advance to finals
I'm a little undecided at the moment about the tournament. Here are my thoughts: The coverage was absolutely superb from the BBC. I now have several (5+ on long play!) tapes of action to watch at my leisure. The online streams were OK, but could do with being a little faster! Not only did the BBC cover the usual british action (which they might have done anyway), but they covered loads of matches with no british interest at all. Hats off to them - I certainly will be emailing them to compliment them on the coverage. However, I'm not sure if I'm the only who thinks this - but I thought the standard of the badminton was significantly less than the event in Sydney. I've been able to burn some video CDs of the final rounds from Sydney, and there seemed to be more close games, and more excitement in the majority of the games. The exceptions from this event that spring to mind are the mixed final, the WS final, the Gade-Taufik match, and the Shon-Sony semi final. Maybe it is because I haven't seen all of the matches I have recorded yet, but nothing was even close in my mind to the epic MD final from four years ago, and the Gade-Ji semi from then as well. In contrast, I thought that the MS and MD finals in Athens were a bit of a disappointment, mainly because they were such one sided games. It was good to see some real shocks though. Don't get me wrong - it was an excellent tournament. In the UK we now have a great opportunity to publicise badminton based on this event. I just wish we had the same level of coverage 4 years ago!
I wonder if bbc could track the traffic of their interactive service. It would sure help prove or disprove their belief of how popular badminton is.
Everything I hoped for and more. For the last four days I only slep about 2hours each day becauseI was working nights, But the BBC coverage was fantastic, and kept me going. I couldnt have asked for more, great games, I got to see all I wanted.
it was good, but quite dissapointing for me... first of all, even though i was chinese, i favoured great britain much more. they had so much more sportsmanship. i remember one particular part that drove me up the walls. it was during the 3rd set when great britain was on a roll. gail emms was about to serve when zhang jun holds up his hand and says he wants the shuttle switched. the crowd booed, gail emms wasn't thrilled, but as politely as she could be, said the shuttle was fine and wanted to get going. zhang jun's request was denied, then gao ling said she needed to rewrap her knee support. the request was accepted, gail and nathan were obviously not thrilled but used the moment to refresh themselves and wipe off some sweat. finally gail emms served and zhang jun screwed up his net shot and hit right into the net, it was unarguably his fault but he tried to blame the shuttle but to no avail. next rally went to the chinese but zhang jun didn't even switch the shuttle. honestly, to win like that, what's the point? I would rather give it my best and lose gloriously like nathan and gail. but the tournament was a good one, zhang ning had a very emotional moment and i admit it was quite emotional for me too :crying:
I agree ...It was a little surprising to see the Chinese pair using such tactics but obviously they were in trouble and needed to resort to this kind of gamesmanship . It was also sad to see Kim/Ha using the same type of gamesmanship in the mens final , why oh why do players of this standard do this I will never know. The BBC coverage was very impressive , the interactive viewing was excellent
i thought it was great. I voted a 4 because in order for me to vote for the 5, Lin Dan and Chen Hong facing off in the final would have had to happen . But due to many surprises and so many top seeds falling out in the men's singles and mixed doubles, i say that that made the olympic games for badminton more interesting; pretty much deserving the 5.
I put 3 because 1. China's MD and MS really got blow up badly and 2. US's TV coverage was bad and short and cut-offs. However, I can still live with it.....well, I have to, don't I?
5 from me. I thought it was great to see Taufik come through. Probably the most natural talent in his peer group. Great end to a fantastic career for Kim/Ha. Exciting MXD, WS & WD matches.
I rate 4. To get 5, Taufik will have to face more opposition from Shon in MS final. It was the most one sided final in Olympic MS history. I have no doubts on his deserving the gold (though his crying act on court is too much, since he is a baby-faced guy). It made my Indonesian maid sooo happy!! Too bad most of Indonesia missed it on TV.
4 from me, its good to see indonesia continue their gold medal tradition through Taufik, but i was quite dissapointed to see no indonesian in the MD final.