Even if XD , MD and WD are played on different weeks, the fact that you start the second discipline after having competed the first already put you at a certain disadvantage as compared with your opponents who start fresh. Besides, whatever happened in the first event will inevitably affect your performance in the second for better or worse.
Right,
@pcll99, based on what you've posted on the tournament schedules, it becomes clear why ZYL would do well to pull out of either XD or WD, and the latter event is what CBA has chosen for her to do so. A pity Tian Qing has to be sacrificed. If only Team CHN had made better advanced planning and preparations for their other WD combinations to take up the mantle,such as partnering TQ with one of the other prospective partners to form another world-beating pair. Alas, all that is water under the bridge now. The Luo twin sisters will have to come up with something special in Rio, apart from Yu Yang/Tang Yuanting living up to their billing.
As for Zhang Nan, seems to me he will be lucky to retain his XD gold on Tuesday, let alone even enter the final as well for MD on Friday later in the week.
Always bear in the mind, for any sport at the highest level, specifically for the top few players, it's not so much a contest of skills and physical strength alone but more of experience and mental toughness that decide the medallists.
As it is, with the new BWF rule limiting each NOC to maximum two pairs per event, Team CHN's gold quest is already reduced significantly, now other unforeseen circumstances arose to further lessen their chances at winning gold in all five disciplines.
Taking everything into account, it now appears that anything more than three golds for Team CHN is a bonus, an over-achievement defying the odds.