It's not the system... Even if Malaysia has the same system, it does not have as many talents. For example. Suppose top players stay in the peak for about 5 years. In China, we can expect at least 1 or 2 World-Top-10-level talent every year. Thus there will be 5-10 players fighting for 3-4 spots, these players will have to train hard whatever the system is; In Malaysia, maybe just 2, at most 3 such talent every 5 years. As a consequence, these 2 or 3 guys can relax, enjoy life, and still have their national team spots secured (Typical example: Hafiz Hashim). If you check the past 30 years, in MS, China can produce 2 - 3 top players every 5 years, except around 1990. No other country can match this. The second is Indonesia, which produced 4-5 top players in the early 90s and then 2 (Hendrawan, Taufik) in the late 90s. For other countries (including Indonesia in 80s and 00s), they are lucky if they can produce 2 top players every 10 years. Not coincidentally, China and Indonesia have the biggest and second biggest pool of talents.
my puzzlement is that MAS has great history of badminton successful, why is they're slipping year by year. I wonder what's the outlook after lcw era for MS, WS, MD, XD and WD. Is LCW's fame and income are still not enough to attract new bloods?
Great history... I guess you know that, even before China enters the ring, Malaysia was already inferior to Indonesia. Just like in soccer Argentina cannot compete with Brasil. When everything else is similar, the size of talent pool is crucial.
well, after the taufik era, INA outlook isn't that bright either. Yes, they have setiawan and kido but during the good years, INA usually has at least 2 good top notch MD pairs competing. Lately, nova/saralee performance is slipping but understandable as they have peaked already, any INA XD to fill that shoes? I still haven't seen their top new bloods MS. Simon and soni are good for 2 more years, then what?
That's right. In the 90s Indonesia's top-MS-production rate (Almost 10 top MSs in 10 years) is even higher than China. In sharp contrast, during the past 10 years, Indonesia only produced one solid top 10 MS, that is Sony. On the other hand, China is also slowing down. Before CJ Chinese top players usually come in pairs/packs: Early 90s: DJ, SJ; Late 90s: XXZ, CH; Early 00s: LD, BCL. Around 05 people thought the new duo is CJ, GWJ, but finally only CJ (arguably) reached the level people expected.
Here are part of the reasons: 1) LYB was the MD, he was the best for a while in the world. He didn't want to see his fame overtaken by other pairs 2) still the same as #1, China's 2nd chief coach Tian Bing Yi is the head coach for WD. See how weird it is! the WD coach is much higher in pecking order than MD. Tian Bing Yi was the best MD in the world before, why he's not the coach for MD? The same reason as #1. So he took the WD coach, and also the chief coach for all events. Therefore, it is even not tolerant to make the MD achievement better than WD, because the WD coach is the MD coach's boss! China's MD is doomed to fail by its management system! on the other hand, Kim and Park in Korea, they were the best MD once before, they are all MD coaches after retirement. That's the difference. 3) All kids get trained at begining, they were trained as single players, China badminton circle used to treat single players as the 1st class while the doubles as the 2nd class, therefore, their skills in doubles are not solid. 4) Once a single player failed to play single any more, then he reluctantly changed to a double player. All the double players in China, such as Fu HF, Cai Yun, Zheng Bo, Sang Yang, Tian Bing Yi were single players even when they went pro, but had to play double because their singles results were not good enough. So the double players are not as good as singles at first place. 5) Difficult to form a stable pair. National team always wants to control, while provincial teams always want to gain their own benefit from doubles. When national team found a good double player, in order to control, national team always ask the player pair with another player from another province. This could be better, could be worse. But provincial teams want their pairs stick together therefore so that their province has a strong pair. Look at the most dominate pairs from China: Ge Fei/Gu Jun, Zhang JW/Yang Wei, now Du Jin/Yu Yang, they all came from the same province and always stable. Zhang Jun, Zheng Bo, Xu Chen, Zhang Yawen and Zhao Ting Ting are also top notch doubles, but they failed to get a stable partner. Fu HF and Cai Yun are lucky because they are stable too. 6) Cuture thing. Players want to be a super star, but only the single player can be a super star, it is hard to have a guy who's a super star but playing doubles. 7) Money thing. double players have to share their prize money with his partner. 8) back to reason #1, Li Yong Bo was the best player before in MD, he didn't want to see others better than him, now his son is a MD, he might try to down play other players so that his son has a chance to merge. ...
you'd better ask why China is so strong in badminton? Peter, the badminton smart guy, Gade said very clearly "because of money!" He's right, all the gold earned by China was made by money. Everyone knows Denmark is the most wealthy country while China among the poorest. But China badminton association has much more money than Denmark. Li YB even paid all the travel, room and board expenses for the whole Denark badminton team to play tournaments in China! So the reason China is so strong in badminton is the same reason China is so strong in sports overall. Therefore the question "why China is so strong in badminton" is a pseudo question. People should ask "why Indonesia is so strong in badminton?" "why Malaysia is so strong in badminton?" "why Denmark is so strong in badminton?" China got the most gold in Olympics! Even my province, just 1 province out of 30+ provinces in China, got 10.5 gold last year. How much gold Indonesia got? How much gold Denmark got? How much gold Malaysia got? The whole India, with population over 1B, just got 1 gold in all their history! Ok, back to the question about MD. After Li YB got money from the government, so he has to spend them, there are tons of politics involved. and MD in China is absolutely the biggest loser on this. then there is also another reason, I have said, China is poor overall, but rich at sport money, so a lot of kids found out badminton players could be a good career for them, therefore, there are very fierceful compition to make a living by playing badminton. Then politics comes to play again, not every talented kids can be a professional players, they have to have personal relationship. You got to have personal networking to join the provincial team, you of course, got to have personal networking to join the national team. Now here is the trick, many players now in the national team, but not good in playing skills, but strong in networking background. Such as Li Gan, Li YB's son, Sun Jun Jie, Sun Zhi An's son, Pan Pan, ..., many others, what LYB can arrange them to play? If let them play singles, they will fail. So let them play doubles. Of course, have to give them very strong partners. On the other hand, their partners should be happy at first, becuase without pairing with those mediocre players, they will not be able to play for the national team. That's also 1 of the many reasons why China does not have strong MD. Politics is the most important thing, but I just realize that most people here are teenagers in college, it's very hard for you to understand.
maybe.. ..that's a sign that it's really time for Nova and Lilyana to split, esp. w/their recent results..in cooler's book, that partnership no longer has much clout.. As for the query on why CHN squad doesn't produce more top of the line MD pairs, i think we've discussed abt that in another thread (sorry, don't recall which one(s)).. I think they (CY & FHF) do have pretty respectable results (WCs & AE), despite being the sole dependable MD pair. It just that maybe their overall accomplishments are so overshadowed by the more consistent & magnified results from their dominating MS, WS, WD & XD. On the other hand, INA's biggest results come from their MD followed by MS & XD. With M'sia, it's always the MS & MD.
Couldn't agree more on those. How many family in MAS or INA or SIN would let their children "choose" badminton as a career compare to those in the mainland? That alone should explain a lot.
not much more, but much-much more Gosh, if only all badminton associations all over the world shared the same luxury, ya? All CHN MD & XD SF, buddy.
well, this does support that money matters more so than population that steered china into success. Before the collaspe of east germany, they were a powerhouse of OG athletes for the same reason
Also.. ..in relation to CHN's domination in badminton, culture has a lot to do with it, which has been mentioned many times before. CHN might be dominant in sports such as badminton, table tennis, gymnastics, diving, but how about in boxing, pro-car races, pro-cycling, rugby, field hockey, to name a few? Money could be abundant, but if the people can't grasp or get themselves immersed w/ the other sports, then those other sports ain't gonna fly. Same deal in the North America/U.S. with badminton.
polution? That doesn't make sense at all! What's the polution of India? over 1 billion. How many titles of badminton they hold? just 1. How many people in india playing badminton? that's huge too! The gold has always been made by money. If you have more money, you will have higher population in playing badminton. But money should be invested wisely. The money should be invested on the people who physically and intellectually capable to win. That's the most important thing. Every time, when people explain why China dominating in badminton using population. I laughed. because that's the most nonsese stuff. In China, most provinces even don't have badminton population. The province just give up this sports. How come you can divide by their population. In you want to compare China to Indonesia, Malaysia, or Denmark, you have to pick up a province to compare, even though Indonesia is bigger than any province in China. Many people saying Denmark is the strongest badminton country in the world based on its population. Ok, how about comparing Denmark with the city I was born in China, which is Nanjing. In 1950s, 60s, 70s, when Denmark already a powerhouse in badminton, the people in Nanjing have never heard about badminton. Since the people in Fu Jian and Guang Dong learnt badminton from overseas Chinese, badminton became a nation event. Therefore, the Nanjing city government invested some money to train the kids according to the textbook. This way, Nanjing has produced Yang Yang, Zhao Jian Hua, Sun Jun, Chen Jin (only the MS listed here). Is this comparable to what they have in Denmark? If you built it, they will come. If you invest it, you will have the gold. Money is obviously the most important thing.
another funny story about the population and sports achievement. In 1980s, when China finally opened its door to the world and participated in the world sports, they found out the sports they familiar the most was "bicycling". In China, everybody can ride a bicycle. But in the competiton, they did so poor, their population did not help at all. they realized that only money matters, they have to invest money on this sports. Now with the huge money pouring in, their can even grab gold at Olympics on bicycle. It is the money which matters, not the population. All the events China succeeded in sports, including table tennis, gymnastics, diving, and badminton, were all because China poured huge money into it. Now, table tennis and badminton gained some popularity, but there is still no population for gymnastics and diving. The popluation for table tennis and badminton were also the direct results of their success at world competition. Don't mess up the results with their reasons. People has done great research on the relationship between the Olympics medal counts and it GDP per capita. They found strong positive correlation between them. If a county does not have money, or does not want to invest money to badminton, it's impossible for them to becoming a powerhouse in badminton. Same thing applied to China too. There are huge badminton poluation in Fu Jian and Guang Dong, but that doesn't guarantee those two provinces can dominate in the professional competition. Look at the national games, once a province invest more money than Guang Dong and Fu Jian, it could probably win the games with their little population.
We will be waiting for the day.. ...when we'll finally see a Chinese guy all dressed up in that tight bike racing outfit and straddles on his Trek or whatever Chinese made racing bike next to the Contadors, Armstrongs, Schlecks, Wiggins, and Cavendishes of the world and races in one of the premier GTs of cycling..
China can win a bicycle olympics gold, because the money is within their capability. But what you said is a totally different story, that needs much more money for that. America got more money for that. It's impossible for China to win any road bicycle racing in the near future.
Thanks for your writeup, I'll buy reasons #3,#4,#5 and #7. But #1, #2 and #8 are too fabricated.... Maybe LYB should make Tian Bing Yi the MD coach as well .
