Well much predictable result, but still good fighting spirit exhibited by the Denmark squad. Hope i can see the same strong team after 2 years.
Not a literal translation, but summaries: 1. Denmark wants this champ very bad, so LD said he played challenging mode, rather than protecting the champ mode. 2. Great respect for Peter and said his next goal is to play like Peter when he gets older. 3. The idiotic reporter from CCTV asked the comments that he is the greatest ever. LD said every era required different heroes and this might be his last Sudirman and younger players may replace him the next time (I seriously doubt this).
Not a literal translation, but summaries: 1. Denmark wants this champ very bad, so LD said he played challenging mode, rather than protecting the champ mode. 2. Great respect for Peter and said his next goal is to play like Peter when he gets older. 3. The idiotic reporter from CCTV asked the comments that he is the greatest ever. LD said every era required different heroes and this might be his last Sudirman and younger players may replace him the next time (I seriously doubt this).
Thank goodness I decided to keep sleeping. Although I was supporting CHN, I would have cursed at watching such a one-sided blowout. Congrats China.
Peter is the epitome of fitness and longevity, not to mention skills. If he is to retire before the next Sudirman Cup, which is plausible since he will already be 37 that year, then it will deal a huge blow to Danish hopes should no one be able to fill his shoes in a hurry.
Badminton or table tennis? Really? I heard from a Chinese that in fact badminton is more popular in China than table tennis.
Badminton is only like the 5th/6th most popular sport in Denmark. Read sometime ago it has been getting competition from fitness clubs as in the past people used to play it, as still done today, for fitness reasons but now they can simply join a fitness club. In 2003 it was still #4 but in this report from 2008 it has slid down to #6 already having lost over 20,000 members in between and supposedly the number is still dropping. Golf and swimming have overtaken and it was already behind king football, gymnastics and handball ... But this is purely based on membership. Also read icehockey even if it's not in the top 10 of participation sports is a much more popular spectator sport which is probably an even more important measure of popularity as that's where the $$$ has to come from ...
Thanks for that restlessHK. So in a way LD hints to keep on playing after the London Olympic, thats interesting. Did he or the reporter also mention something about INA? I thought I heard INA was mentioned but did not understand the full sentence.
Don't think he mentioned INA, unless you heard more than I did. I just listened to the brief two Q&As.
Indeed, I thought we will watch a thrilling final but CHN is too strong for DEN with 3-0, all straight-sets matches. An anti-climax finale?! Wow, exact prediction, 3-0 Congrats to CHN team for their 8th title Sudirman Cup! Let's see two years later... Who's the host for 2013 edition?
According to my experience in Beijing, Badminton is certainly the most played sports. Of course folks want to see football on tv and during the world cup they go crazy, but considering what the people do (and not watch), bad is n.1 There are facilities everywhere. In a radius of 1 km around my house there was 6 gymnasium dedicated to badminton, with quite cheap entry price. But that do not explain alone the success of CHN. A lot of other factors are involved.
One factor is the population... imagine China has 500 aspiring badminton player to choose from while Denmark has only 100 to choose from. And... AFAIK China trains kids in a academy focusing on a particular sport like badminton with academics as well. If that's really true... no doubt they are the powerhouse. Congratulations China team!!!
