IS BADMINTON A DYING SPORT? When virus (catastrophe) meets with demographic collapse.
In the past, we d see young stars rising. Taufik already being WR1 at 19 and then come young LD/LCW, now that they retire , is there much left? How does these players break through and not just break through but being at WR1 at such young age. Nowadays , we dont see this anymore. The youngest participant in MS , i believe is Kunlavut and he will be 20 this year ( He enters the main draw because many withdrawn)o. Well, he will struggle to break top 15 let alone top 8 in coming years. I'd say the youngest top player is Ginting and AA ( Even so, they will be 25&24 respectively this year). From time to time, we'd see players like An Se Young or Leo/Daniel who yet to turn 20 reaching Superseries SF but its rare, like really rare ( also entering main draw because of withdrawals)
Most worryingly, i havent seen any regeneration in Taipei, HK, Korea, and to some extent you can say Japan (China excluded because of their sheer population at this time but didnt someone in CHN camp also admitted there hasnt been a lot of potential pool). Of course, most of these countries have very low TFR, Korea at <0.80 this and has been hovering around 1 for the last 20 years, no wonder there is little talent from year 2000/95 onwards .
What we see are players like CTC, TTY, wheres their younger cohorts? We also used to see a good XD pair from HK. Where is young Korea MS player that can replace SonWanHo? The situation must be dire. For example, you can say they are still competitive in WD but even the youngest WD for Korea will be 27 this year. the MD for Korea isnt like the years gone by or last decades and of course , the reasons are demographics. There use to be KimDongMun / LeeDongSoo. Of course even Malaysia struggles to replace LCW. The situation is most acute in Korea, their TFR is the lowest of all. Its just sad that badminton powerhouse isnt like how they used to be and has been felt with many countries. Like Denmark losing its WS WD XD prowess.
You can also say, many of these players are just waiting for Olympic Games and will retire after that.