http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Dan#Major_Badminton_Men.27s_Singles_Tournament_Timeline I tried updating the wiki page in English on Lin Dan, to try to represent the highest and most elite of his MS wins. Problem is, I'm not a badminton expert so I don't know if I got it correct. As far as I can tell, the Olympic Games are above all else, followed by the World Championships and also to win the Gold in the Asian Games and win the All England Trophy are the important most prestigious events in men's singles badminton. If this is true, that these can be placed above the rest as the sort of *highest* standard of excellence in tournament victories for a singles player, then Lin Dan has won 11 MS Majors!!! What do you guys think? I realise the World Champs is held every year now apart from the Olympic year but his achievement is still amazing. On a points system, due to the rarity of the Olympic Games and the Asian Games, perhaps they should be worth 2 points each? So, Lin Dan would have 13 overall points from the Major tournaments that focus only on individual play and one's self. This is comparable for example to Roger Federer winning 16 Grand Slam Titles (also 6 Year-end Championships - another important tennis event). It's interesting that in tennis, to win the singles Olympic Gold is not even close in importance to winning a Grand Slam Event, but in badminton, the Olympics is the most important event, yes? I hope you like my update on the wiki page which shows his wins in a table at the important events. Please tell me if it's correct and give advice on what else should be added or taken away from the table.
Lin Dan doesn't like to be compared to the tennis guys Olympics for honour, Grand Slams for money. That's the difference. The Asian Games title nowadays is perhaps more important than the World Champion, since to win it one has beat all strong badminton nations except Denmark, and it takes place once every four years.
Indeed Lin Dan doesn't like being compared to tennis. He made a comment a couple days ago about how he and LCW are not the Federer and Nadal of tennis, he sees it as being the Lin Dan and LCW of badminton. I believe that was very well put and it shows his pride in the sport in stead of always being the cousin to Tennis. He's been showing a lot more support for badminton in the last year or so to the press, though obviously his withdrawals and walkovers make others take his words with a grain of salt because of the way the system works with LYB and the Chinese team. To comment on the OP's point about the olympics in tennis being far less important than it is in badminton, that's because Tennis has had a much longer establishment of the major grand slams long before it was included in the olympics. Badminton on the other hand did not have any really high profile tournaments anywhere close to the olympics. With the introduction of the olympics to badminton, it became the pinnacle of our sport. And since it was only introduced 20 years ago, badminton is a relatively new sport to the olympics. But with that obviously badminton has come a long way with introducing more prestigious tournaments to the world, though not quite as big as the tennis ones. edit: even I compared Lin Dan and LCW to federer and Nadal, but after seeing Lin Dan make that comment I was immediately shown the error of my thinking =). Badminton pride!
Wang Shixian should have read this comment..to her, Asian Games Gold that she just bagged meant nothing to her at the moment LMAO...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP1q2tOcisQ&feature=related Of course Lin Dan made the most sensible comment in that evening putting that stupid fool in his place for making such a patronising comparison. There's only Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei in the sports they play..means they are in the class of their own..others are no where near his and LCW's level. Amazing
My opinion would be: 1st tier: Olympics -10pts * 4yrs = 40pts 2nd tier: All England SSP(prestige), Korean SSP(1.2million), Season Ending -7 pts each 3rd tier: World Championships(every year is ridiculous) -5pts, Other SSP -4pts 4th tier: Super Series events -2 pt
ask anyone if they want a world champion + a super series title (say Malaysia Open), or a Korea Open. both 7 points
ask anyone if they want $75,000USD or ($12,500-15,000USD + Don't remember world champs having any prize money?)?
To be world champion is def more prestigious than any open title, masters series title etc.. Any player would def prefer to call themselves 20xx world champion compared to 20xx open champion.
All England prestige is based on it having been the unofficial world championship when there were no separate world championships ... Korea prize money has only been around for two years, should we count all the Korea Open titles before that as well?? AE (nowadays) is a nice consolation price if you missed out on the world title .
In my opinion with the advent of SSP and Season Ending championship, I feel the WC has become redundant and unnecessary. Since it lost its scarcity value by being an annual event, the only thing it has going for it, is the name world championship. Other than the title of World Championship, what difference does it have to an SSP or SP for that matter? My suggestion would be to make the season ending tournament be the default WC. PS: Korean SSP isn't the same as previous Korean Open so you don't count them the same! And should the Korean SSP not have a huge cash prize, then it will just be like any other SSP. You can always denote the difference by adding a * and a footnote next to the tournament.
It's not redundant at all. The difference is players would play with a different mentality when it comes to big titles like the Olympics or a World Championships. Prize money is not so important. They don't make much money playing badminton anyway. They're fighting for recognition and pride.
To DLP "AE is just a SS", on paper yes, in the minds of badminton players and fans ??? To Fauci "Prize money is not so important.", Let's agree to disagree on this.
What I wanted to say is that the prize money is not yet a decisive factor whether a tournament is seen as important or not in badminton, because the prize money is simply not much compared with the "big" sports.
I take your point that some may not view the tournament as big because of the prize money, but I would argue that the players themselves will take this tournament quite seriously because it is by far the biggest prize purse in our sport.
Players notice that Korea is the richest SS. AE is just another SS nowadays, its nowhere near worlds or OG
Still it's an event with a proud history, Lin Dan's fifth title has put him above players like Morten Frost and Liem Swie King, If only he played seriously from the beginning without walkovers, he could have even beaten Erland Kops record and match Rudy Hartono (well even one of Hartono's victories was intructed that way, Indonesia back then was pretty good at dirty tactics too)
In tennis it isn't Olympics for honour and Grand Slams for money at all. It's well accepted that the absolute pinnacle in tennis is to win a Grand Slam Event, and for most that Wimbledon is the absolute ultimate championship. Even the Year-end Championships are held in higher esteem in tennis than OG. In badminton it is VERY different.
