He would be wasted in adminstrative politics, if he were from India! SS is not an easy opponent off late. And for Lin Dan, no mater how big superstar he used to be, it's not easy with age catching up. Lin Dan knows this fact and adjusts his game accordingly. And as the best atheletes do in most of the games when they begin age, he plays more by his brain than his body. Such players are most dangerous! Well done LD. Badminton is incomplete without you. I missed the match but eagerly waiting to watch it online. But I can imagine what would have happened
Female players from the rest of the world are catching up with the Chinese girls . You'll need to tell Janet that the 'female players from the rest of the world are catching up with the Chinese girls'. .
Nothing beats watching it live. The whole gamut of feelings, emotions, the worries, the concerns, the uplifted hopes, the occasional disappointments, the amazing turnaround, the changing fortunes, the near-misses, the pure delights, unadulterated joys - simply overwhelming, transporting, engrossing, enthralling. Watching Lin Dan play badminton is one of the innocent pleasures that make my life complete. I'm so grateful he continues to provide us such wonderful enjoyment. Rejoice !
Yup, you're right, he certainly did. First he fooled me by making simple,amateurish errors now and then to drop G1. Next in G2, he continued to mislead me in the first half before turning the match around in the latter half. Finally, in G3, he was suddenly like a player transformed, sending Simon reeling, lost and confused. For sure, Lin Dan made me eat my words and I still have to thank him for it.
You guys are too harsh on GC. I am sure you watch matches transmitted by cctv or BTV or other Chinese channels. If you are not totally biased yourself, you then know what is a total one-side commentary. GC is very mild in comparison. I am sure its the case in most countries actually.
Absolutely not. The challenge must be immediate. Otherwise the players will listen to their coaches telling them it's in or out.
Well renbo you just can't compare orange with apple. If CCTV broadcasts the game, of course the commentators would be biased for LD simply because LD is a Chinese player and CCTV is a Chinese TV network. I think it's normal. Similar things happen to Malaysian TV or Indonesian TV, and other countries TV as well. But GC is a totally different case. She was invited and paid by BWF as a commentator to the whole world. She represents BWF, not any specific country (not even England where she lives), but BWF only. You can even claim that she is kind of an ambassador of the sport, and she is paid to promote the sport to the whole world. That said, if GC is as biased for LD as a China TV station, or as biased for Simon Santoso as an Indonesian TV station, then BWF should fire her immediately !
I agree with you. I was doing the comparison because GC might be sometimes a little biased. To know what is being really biased we can refer to the cases I mentioned. Just to get the proportion right. Reading some comments, one would think GC is overly biased, but she's not. We all have our favorites players and nations and on this ground it's easy to think the commentator is too cold towards the ones we love.
I really like Morten Frost. Gillian Clark is a bit wishy-washy, and yeah I find her biases a bit grating. MF brings a technical coaching-based element to his broadcasting which I really love. Together they're okay though. I'd hate to think what the CCTV talking heads are like, bias wise. Probably incredibly rubbish. Perhaps we should count our blessings
Whoa, in just one day I've been made to eat humble pie so many times. For me , faith must not be blind, it has to be based on knowledge. I believe anyone watching the match unfold would be forgiven for thinking what I thought and saying what I said during the first half of the match with Lin Dan's 'ordinary' play fraught with mistakes vis-a-vis Simon Santoso's superb game reminiscent of how he disposed of LCW the last time. Nevertheless, I'm gratified in the end by how Lin Dan turned the match around in the latter half with a masterful display of consummate badminton of a different kind, Lin Dan version 3 as some of us,initiated by galaxyduo in particular, once called it.
Watch post-match interviews conducted by Aaron Wong, Badzine Correspondent live in Sydney - http://new.livestream.com/nbcaustralia/events/3109858
My friend....faith is 'belief without knowledge'. Information based on knowledge is just......intelligence.
I haven't watched any cctv or infact any local commentary except Official BWF ones. I personally find GC and MF to be extremely biased against Chinese Players (in general). I find that irritating and unpleasant, and while I understand that the local commentaries may be more biased, they are local for a purpose! I have watched Indian commentaries on International matches (Cricket) and I know the commentators are at times cheering for India, but that is because it is geered for a market. I think BWF should be neutral and almost all it's representation be relatively neutral as well. I understand that you can never be perfectly neutral and at times, for the sake of spice and freedom, you need freedom for commentators to express. But, most often than not, I find GC and MF to extremely biased against any CHN Players. A few Illustrations: 1. World Championships Final 2k11 (LD vs LCW) Morten Frost was, in his own words, biased to the point that he was literally cheering for LCW! One of his few comments: After the match LD wins, and his co-commentator (not GC) was exclaiming his thrill, when, MF interjects "But LCW plays the best", the commentator goes on"But LD just won the title" to which he replies "I know." The literal hypocrisy in heart-wrenching. 2. In any typical match the talk is almost always about the non-CHN player on court. What they should do, and how they are fighters and will always fight, and how they are good, and how they could win if they have done this or that, and how they have potential ..... The skills of CHN players are almost always neglected and even denigrated. An example of this: GC basically fell in love with Ratchanok Inthanon because of her fantastic performance in one match, so much so that, for the next many tournaments the only thing I was able to hear was Rat RAt RAT ... Even to the point that whenever some one had a 12-19 or so score she started talking about the rat moment and if the player can pull off a rat-thrill again. I admire rat but I think her world championship title, though deserved, was maybe a bit premature, and while she had total capability of someday being the numero uno (along with Akane), she still has a lot to learn. 3. LCW is the personal favourite of both MF and GC. Since only an insane person, or one who is pre-occupied with either love of their nation (Malaysia) or an effacing hatred for CHN players, can argue that LCW is better than LD, they have a good past-time arguing on tv that LCW is mentally weak, and that without that LD is conquerable, and that even in the present state LD and LCW are equal. Well one just needs to take a customary look at the head-head record of LD with any player of his age and time to see that there is simply no comparison! While GC can for sure argue, and quite correctly, that comparing players across ages is unfair, among the players of this age, how can one miss the stats? LCW has a H2H of 10 - 5 against Sony Kuncoro, 9-5 against Lee Hyun-Il, and 9-22 against LD. If LD and LCW are equal, then surely are Sony and LCW, because Sony has a better record against LCW compared to the record that LCW has against LD.
The interviews are always embarrassing. I met Viktor and he was a super chill guy, for what it's worth. I had fun. The event organisers are, as usual, a bunch of needlessly haughty pricks. Not the volunteers, whom I thought did a good job, but the organisers with big necklace access cards that you can barely read from the solar glow produced by their egos. They even walk as if every step they take makes a star explode. An autograph signing announcement is made as the biggest match of the tournament is starting, but you're demanded to stand against the back wall so you can't even see the court. The announcement was premature, of course, because the signers end up being no-shows and by now sixty customers have missed Lin Dan's first game. The pink-jacket volunteers get treated as if just being at the event is something so glorious that they should sacrifice body parts to Krishna out of gratitude, dismissing the fact that these kids are doing a lot of work for a long time over the course of a week for free. You can't sit and wait for players to walk through the backstage area from the corner seats, as if the players are so fragile and their calendars are so arbitrary that one person calling their name from the stands for a few seconds after a match will incline them not to return to the event next time. If I would've been sitting in those seats, which have the worst possible long-distance visuals, far away from other people who paid the same amount as me who are enjoying the match from a few metres away, and a guy with walkie talkie tells me I can't wait for my favourite player to walk past me I would've started throwing punches. You can't record video. This is one rule I made sure to pay as much respect to as I felt the organisers were paying me. The result is that they treat as many people as possible like children and it further alienates a country that has barely anything to do with badminton. It wasn't particularly boring, but it could've been so much tighter and more intimate. They didn't aim for retention or investment by keeping things fun and exciting, almost as if they thought the main appeal of the tournament was something other than Lin Dan. Thankfully, I still had a ton of fun, despite their efforts. The badminton was cool, the card was impressive, and at least the Yonex store was a corollary I could kinda enjoy. I walked past and in luckier cases got a photo with a few notable players on pre-finals days. It has reinvigorated me with this sport.
First, back to back and hat-trick in Sydney First SS title for KOR Ko SH/Kim HN who finally captured their top prize. Also 'first' SS triumphant to Saina Nehwal after 20 months (since DEN SSP 2012) and 'first' SS victory for Lin Dan after All England 2012. Back to back for Tian/Zhao who played much better than previous rounds to dispatch Matsutomo/Takahashi. The fave KOR MD Lee YD/Yoo YS created incredible hat-trick in three weeks, fantastic achievement! All 5 finals were interesting to watch, but the last one is most. After slow style display in game 1, we watched the up tempo LD in game 2 and total control in decider. Simon did his best but it's not enough to beat LD, great effort by Simon.
I remember watching LD vs LCW on CCTV in WC2013. The commentators were XXF (ie, LD's wife) and Bao CL. The two commentators did not praise LD that much. On the contrary, a lot of positive things said about LCW.
CCTV's sports commentators are highly professional in every sense of the word, one of the best anywhere in the world, eg in badminton, Zhao Jianhua, Zhao Tingting, Gong Weijie, just to name three. No point arguing about it - if you understand Mandarin, check it out yourself. Why make a wild guess or listen to unfounded hearsay? Be your own judge in an open-minded, impartial,objective way, honestly and sincerely as a seeker of truth. Perhaps one or two commentators at the provincial or city level may occasionally expressed some bias but they are catering to a specific,local audience as often happened elsewhere in the world. Not CCTV , a national sports station, broadcast internationally to various parts of the world. Bear in mind that prime time on CCTV-Sports is expensive and China excels in several sports, badminton is only one of them, as well as a few other sports that are quickly gaining in popularity though China has yet to do well in them, such as soccer, tennis, golf, snooker,etc - and they are all vying for attention and viewership on TV, so it's not easy to get screen time. The respect,admiration and status they accord foreign players like LCW, Taufik Hidayat, Peter Gade, for example, will earn your unbounded approval. Lin Dan once said he was surprised that sometimes the Chinese crowd cheered more for LCW than for him when they both compete in China, a fact he has come to terms with now. GC herself has also said that every time she goes to China she is recognised on the streets and in taxis and greeted warmly. For decades until today, the Chinese has this philosophy that in order to excel they must learn from the best in the world no matter where they are from, and, at the same time, be ready and willing to recognize and criticise their own failings. Enough said, I shan't digress too much.
