Hi, I know that this is kind of old but was at a friend's place (he has satellite TV) and found that they were showing badminton on the WTSN channel! It's the highlights from the Uber Cup Finals 2000 - China vs Denmark. Anyhow, in watching the matches, it seems to me that the Danish players including Camilla Martin gave up after the Chinese players managed a string of points. I believed that Camilla lose in straight games even though she was up 6-2 in the first game (losing 11-9). The other ladies single featured the Danish player starting well (she won the first 4 or 5 points) but was kind of exhausted after wining a particular long rally whereas the Chinese player looked fresh. The Danish player after that made about 5 unforced errors to give up her lead and eventually the match. Unenforced errors like smashing out, serving wide, etc. It seems that the attitude was that China was going to win anyway so why bother? I dislike this type of attitude as I personally rather give it my best shot to see how many points I can get off a better player than to just give up. Is it just me or don't you think that mental attitude is what separate the champions from the rest?
I guess they start out with Giving their best effort and by the time the steam runs out they Just find out that They have blown thier opponent away as they used to in Their homeland! The y just find that they are Up a coupel fo Points that They Just tend to give up! I would never agree that They enter a game thinking that they will either way lose! I am sure that They try their level best and find out that The chinese Just tease them by the end of 6 odd points! It is like this! Think of ur self playing agst a Damn good opponent who never runs out of steam even after u try to move him to all four corners with great speed! he matches u in skill and talent and make u move the same distance! I am sure after a certain stage u are just overwhelmed and U los eth agem to lack in focus! What we shoudl understand is that Chinese are Great and HATS of to them for having such a rigourous training Prog! i wonder how many Eurpoeans would actually be willing to go through it! I am talking abt Europe Only as I dont see any other country coming close to challenging The chinese womens Team!
wow. cool. just went to wtsn.ca, they are airing : 8:00PM 2001 Badminton Swiss Open, Bazel, Switzerland, mixed doubles it will be tonight.
btw, this has been brought up once in a while, has anyone managed to receive the asian satelite and/or cable channels from N. America? especially StarSports and the SportsChannel from HK. i look around every now and then for such info, but they all has turned out to be disappointments. i wonder why no one has done it. with such diverse ethnicity and thus diverse interests, there bound to be a market for such channels!! who has a couple of million dollar to sponsor a Badminton Central Channel?? i promise, it will air Badminton 24 hours a day!
Re: Badminton on WTSN Just to follow up Kwun's post. The badminton (Swiss Open XD) starts at 8 pm EST (5pm PST). I got my VCR going...
Try talking to Paul Newman. He's in CA and might even be your neighbor. He's an avid badminton player as well. If you look at the USAB tapes from the 1996 Olympics you will see Paul Newman in some of the crowd shots. We were there but did not notice him. He probably was too far down front for us to see. Another idea: since you're in California already, make contact w/ some young film maker & convince him to make a badminton movie to enter in the Sundance Film Festival that PN and Robt. Redford are interested in. Could be a documentary, but better to make an action movie: "Crouching Front Player, Hidden Smasher". Plot: Ge Fei/Gu Jun come out of retirement to convince the IBF to abandon the 5 X 7 scoring system, but they are in danger from evil gangsters who own several bowling alleys and fear that top badminton stars will convince TV networks to broadcast badminton and thereby have less time for bowling shows. Jackie Chan hears about the plot, he and that good-looking lady who's in his movies come to the rescue. Have some good scenes w/ Ge&Gu holding off the gangsters by smashing at them, knocking the guns aside so they cannot shoot JC, etc. There. I've done all the hard work, just fill in the missing parts and call Paul. We'll have our sport on TV soon.
