I had the privilege of watching and supporting Viktor during the Indonesia triple header and his level is just way above the other players on current form. At this rate, I'm confident that he has a very decent chance of another Olympic goal in Paris. If he wins that, I believe that he should surpass Lee Chong Wei and at least be level with Lindan for the conversation of the greatest of all time. What do you guys think?
For me he is already in the league LD = VA > LCW > debatable others. VA at his peak is the most challenging player for the opponents than LD/LCW/Momota or any player in the world. Imagine most opponents who are always in a pressure not to lift the shuttle. Anything short of a perfect lift is punished badly. Opponents never experienced such kind of pressure against any of the other greats. Besides, VA has to deal with tough competition right from the round 1, while LD/LCW rarely got tested before the semis or finals in most tournaments.
to be considered a goat in your sport you need to be regarded as a dominant force for a period longer than anyone before you. very few #1 ranked players have a 'peak' run longer than 3 years. how long has axelsen been head and shoulders above his competition? only since the restart of the sport during the covid era. before that he was owned by momota. nor did he clearly demolish everybody else. q: how many years did lin dan & lee chong-wei dominate for? a: exactly. axelsen is nowhere close.
In my opinion, to be the goat badminton player, there should be more then winning lot of titles. VA is a great player, but he is a workaholic much like Marine, and he deserves the place where he is now for sure. But for me the best of the bests needs some special natural talent, some magic, which is not reproducable by others. In this case (young) LD is much like TTY, both share some natural talents unseen on court so far and in the case of LD, he has although so many victories in his active phase.
even after losing to loh kean yew 14-21, 21-9 & 21-6 today in the 1st rd of a wc during what is considered to be his career peak condition? do you think axelsen's peak run will last longer than the average player? he originally hit #1 in september 2017. paris 2024 is a long way away in badminton years.
No one is perfect. Even Lin Dan lost to Ronald Susilo. If VA is indeed a GOAT, he will bounce back. We will just have to see. But this loss will certainly delay any GOAT nomination.
He is not qualified to be GOAT because he has not produced any magic moments like Lin Dan did. Sure he can be successful like Poul Erik, Marin but where is that moment of magic ? My examples of Lin Dan's moment of magic :- 1) Winning his first All England title - He was up against a very in-form Peter Gade and he was inexperienced. That is one of the best 15-point matches i ever seen. 2) Winning his first key crucial team match for Thomas Cup - Again beating Peter Gade in the team final to score the first point. 3) Holding his own against Lee Chong Wei - Let's be honest with ourselves, Lee Chong Wei is literally unbeatable in 2011. Nobody comes close to beating him and Lin Dan was already close to resigning to that fact BUT he held his own in that WC final and manage to beat Lee Chong Wei by A POINT thanks to Lee Chong Wei bottling it. 4) Defending his Olympic title - Again against Lee Chong Wei. He was mentally prepared for the game and prove his point. VA may be able to accomplish point 4) BUT I have never seen any of of the 1), 2), 3) from him. Maybe in future.
it's all abt titles, moment of magic is just something bonus. In tennis, whoever in the big 3 have 1 more grandslam will be undisputed GOAT. Titles in badminton is more complicated
Not easy for VA. He is surrounded by many good upcoming players. And he is already 27. LD's only real opponent was LCW. LCW's opponents were all the CHN players and this made LD's job easier. It's like the Chinese Kung Fu movies. The hero has to fight his way up one by one until he reaches the ultimate foe where he usually wins so that it has a happy ending but not LCW's case, where he totally came up short.
Let’s wait a bit before coming to a judgment. He just won world championships but nothing before that and we don’t know how he’d fare against momota, ginting and shi yuqi. Also now his game will be read by a lot of other players. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Many Olympic gold medalists found it hard to find motivation to go through heavy training again. But they were good enough to participate again, but didn't get the gold again.
