..hmm, sorry, i might not make my earlier post more specific..what i meant to add to the word "popular" is the word "dominating"..Sure basketball and soccer are popular in CHN(as well as perhaps the rest of the world)..But table tennis, along with badminton, are still 2 of CHN's most popular & dominating sports in the world, no argument there..
..alright, i'll take that for an answer, EastDevil...but is that the *only* reason for CHN's badminton is so popular and dominating to the rest the world??..And vice versa, why the rest of the world seem to not "recognize" badminton as a "marketable" sport??..
Well actually there are some good gals in other countries. Like P. Overzier who beated Jiang Yanjiao. The gal Schenk who can jump smash hard who didn't show up in this WC. Some Korean gals, some Jap gals, Cheng from Chinese Taipei, Wong Mewchoo from Mas. If Zhang and Xie are not playing, then all the above have chance to grab titles. The above is WS. In WD, we have already seen that Wei/Zhang is really not much superior over the MAS girls Wong/Chin. The two Thai girls are also OK. I don't think LYB has much under his sleeves. In WS, it seems Jiang, Zhu Lin, Lu Lan may not be able to reach the level of Zhang and Xie. Among younger girls, the best are Wang Lin and Wang Yihan. The former seems the have potential but the latter's improvement seems to be slow. In WD Du/Yu is definitely the best young pair. I think after 2 years, these old players will still be better than the younger ones and WS/WD from other countries but they will be more beatable.
china's dominance probably will never end. you guys are only looking at the more famous players. what you don't see is the youngsters training right now in china. as soon as lin dan, xxf, etc retire or w/e, there will be others who are just as talented to replace them. and pramilainc, your an idiot. just because india will have 1.4billion people doesn't mean they're are going to be good at badminton. if india has a shitty and low funded badminton program, then they will never dominate in this sport. badminton, as like every other sport in the world do not get world #1 players by 'random chance'. if what your saying is true, then china should be good at almost all the sports in the world.
China's dominance is not the result of one factor, but the combination of a lot of factors. the whole chain of things done right, and you get a superpower like China. firstly they have a whole complete system that allow them to select talented players. there are sports schools in every part of the country, each sports school has a badminton program; each big city has their city team which picks the best from the sport schools; each province has a province team whcih picsk the best from the city team; and the national team picks the best out of the province team. each team are equiped with qualify coaches to do the talent selection. once inside the national team, there is a whole ladder of players. each player are given all the amenities and salaries to allow them to focus on badminton, they get accomodation, food, everything taken care of, and good players gets a decent salary. the coaches are very well organized, and there are tons of them and they are the best in the country. the whole system are well funded by the local and national government, and the more successful they are, they will get more money flowing in. bad players, unmotivated players, untalented players, get kicked out of the team and will be replaced by the next one in line. and most importantly, there is a leadership that sees this vision of how to develop a team and see that the job gets done and make sure they are done correctly. any of the component is not present, the system as a whole will fail. i am sure LYB himself will be sweating day in and day out hoping that his team performs, otherwise his own job will be in jeopardy as well. and if the whole team is winning like the Chinese do, everyone is happy. i don't think countries should be looking into the Chinese system to understand why China is doing well, as their system is rather obvious and functional, but extensive and expensive. we should be looking at countries like Denmark, which has a much smaller talent pool, with much less funding, with a much looser system, and yet still able to produce world beating players, how do *they* do it?? that, i want to know.
Why China's dominance is a problem? and why it should be and will be ended? Have you guys ever asked for Asia's dominance ended? China is a powerhouse in world sports. It took half of the gold in Asian Games. When it will be ended? It may never happen until China's destroyed. So just take it as everyday's life thing. China will be a powerhouse in badminton for sure. China has always won gold in every World Championship it participated. China may have ups and downs, fluctuations according to statistics law. But you never see China like Indo, which even cannot get any medals in the WC. You will never see that(China without medal) in your lifetime. I guarantee it.
oh, u guys want the big long reasons? hehe anyway, the previous three posters gave some very good points and there are very correct. I didnt say more before because it might sound politically incorrect or me seen as a bias person which i'm not. The water tight training system of china reflects its traditional value of long term planning. The current success is the result of great planning planted decades ago. On the other extreme INA bet big on taufik and other few star players but leaving less resources for grooming budding talents. It's feast or famine cycle for INA while china opt for a sustain moderate continuous growth. With china coming from poor status to an economic power house, their population and unlimited $$$ will sustain them for even bigger dominance in coming years, well, in all of my remaining lifetime anyway. look at diving, #1. WD tennis took gold in olympic. Xiang liu, china superhero, broke world record in 110m hurdle (12.88 sec). It is a rare sight to see a chinese standing on the podium beside two african americans which are known (by genetics) to be the best in track and field. Xing Huina took the women gold in 10000 m at athen, a sport that is also known to be dominated by african. etc etc All of above achievements are unthinkable just a decade or 2 ago. ie, i think this is just the beginning............ to move a mountain, u begin by removing the first stone.
Actually maybe they just started ......... except for WD and WS. You can see that in MD, this is their first since 1989 ..... it is 17 years of waiting after Li Yongbo/Tian Bingyi. For MS, many players can do it .......... and maybe this is first all CHN (please correct me if I'm wrong). Also for XD, CHN is not the best. In the group even, no doubt for it since 2004 (Uber & Thomas) and 2005 (Sudirman). Simply, Beijing Olympics 2008 maybe is one of the main reason ........ Anyway, to me ......... just see the way who play badminton without see from which country ...... it will be more enjoyable to see badminton games. If you see how CHN trained their Team-A and Team-B, then they deserve for it. And also don't forget MONEY ...... CHN is the country with biggest reserved (again please correct me if I'm wrong) .......... No MONEY then of course No HONEY .........
The Scandanavians are very good at racket games (they play a lot of indoor games such as tennis and badminton because it is cold outside). Badminton has been enjoyed for a long time in Denmark from the days of Alan Copp (7 times All-England ?). The tradition of playing badminton is strong there as much as it is in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Almost all Chinese national players trained up from sports school when they were at very young age like 7 or 8 years old. They were trained professionaly everyday and one whole day by professional coaches. While others non China players went through normal educational system for their primary/ elementary education and only play badminton after schools or week end. Chinese players spent more time in badminton practise compare to non China players so they produce good results.
when will it end? when every other nation trains up to their level. china got to where they are through their own blood, sweat, and tears.
The comment is simply ridiculous to me. To me, this is purely the sore loser way of speaking, as you simply ignore all the hard effort the athletes putting into for years. Plus, when we speak of a nation's dominance in a sport, we are talking about the "group", "generation" and "depth". Just a few individuals can't achieve that stage.
Part of the reason is actually the nature body build. The western ppl (especially male) tend to be taller and stronger in general. Therefore, they takes advantage in sports which height/strength/edurance are consider as key factors. Such as basketball, soccer and american football. The eastern male tend to be shorter but more flexible. Therefore, they tend to dominate in sports which agility takes more important of roles. Such sports include badminton, table tennis, etc. The nature can great eliminate certain body build, as if you are 7 feet tall, pretty much you can't do gymnastics. If you are only 5 feet, your NBA dream is very slim, regardless how much you like it.
..we seem to have some very interesting inputs on this...lots of them.. .. (btw, don't know if mods want to move this thread to another sub-forum as it seems to be more of a general inquiry/discussion)??..
Absolutely agree with your points. Myself, I do not believe China has secret weapons or mysterious boot camp like Shao-Lin Temple that overpower the rest of the world. I am sure the selection system is pretty standard and commonly used in other countries. I do believe if badminton gains the same level of popularity in India or US or Russia, the system will produce results like China as well. Good point, we should be learning from the Danes how they are able to consistently produce world class players given a much smaller pool of talents !!! If Denmark has a population half of China, I believe we would have to rewrite the history of badminton.
wrong, i know lotta people gotten honey with no money. it seem BAM spent alot but no honey to show for. ------------------- NSC: Time for badminton to live up to promises By RAJES PAUL Datuk Zolkples Embong KUALA LUMPUR: Badminton may not enjoy the privilege as the sports to receive the most funding from the government if they continue to fall short of expectations in major tournaments. The National Sports Council (NSC) deputy director, Datuk Zolkples Embong, said yesterday that they deemed the performance of the national team in the just concluded World Championships in Madrid as a major failure. On the directive of the Youth and Sports Minister, Datuk Azalina Othman Said, Zolkples held a special press conference at Bukit Jalil yesterday to state that the team had failed to justify the money – almost half a million ringgit – spent on them in Madrid. And to get them back on the right track for the Doha Asian Games scheduled for Dec 1-15, the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) had been given one week to explain the failure in Madrid. “We, the NSC and the Sports Minister are truly disappointed with the badminton team. Their recent failures at the World Championships does not reflect well on what we can expect from them in the Asian Games,” said Zolkples, who is also the chairman of the committee who oversee all the NSC’s programmes. “We have earmarked them to win gold medals at the Doha Games. We are now very concerned and want answers from the BAM within a week. “The NSC have provided everything for them and given them all forms of support. They get our priority. In fact, they enjoy our biggest funding. For the World Championships alone, the budget was RM423,389.98 to be exact. “They (the BAM) said that they had the best prepared team but, except for the mixed doubles, none made it to the semi-finals. (Lee) Chong Wei was the men’s singles top seed and he failed to reach the final. And there were empty promises in the men’s doubles.” Zolkples said that the NSC would not tolerate excuses for the failures. “We have spent so much on them. But the players and coaches talked about dubious line calls and umpires favouring Europeans. But look at China, they still went home with four world titles,” he said. The NSC also said that the team’s early departure for Madrid and the large number of officials incurred them additional cost. “Why send sparring players like James (Chua)? His career is as good as over. We did not know about him because he is not under the elite programme. If they had wanted to take sparring players, they should look at the juniors,” said Zolkples. “Does a nutritionist need to be there? In fact, the players could have used the excellent facility that we have here (at Bukit Jalil) for training instead of going there early. They would have the option to spar with more players here and it would have saved us a lot of money.” He also questioned the presence of the assistant singles and doubles coaches, Wong Tat Meng and Pang Cheh Chang, and assistant manager Lim Kok Wye. On why the NSC had in the first place approved the team’s early familiarisation stint and the large contingent to Madrid, Zolkples said that they had faith in badminton. “I had two meetings with Ganga (Rao, the BAM secretary). I told him to reduce the number of officials because the cost was too high. But I was given an assurance that they had the best-prepared team and we accommodated them. Maybe, we are looking at all these details now because we are upset over the team’s performance.” Zolkples, however, said that they would await an official report from BAM. “For now, there will not be any drastic decisions because the Asian Games are just two months away,” he said. “But badminton need to remember that they will be treated just like the other sports if they fail to live up to the high expectations we have placed on them at the Games.” The NSC will conduct a review on every sport under their payroll after the Asiad.
Ill simply blame it on the stupid politics if it were population India would have had equally good badminton players. Oh btw did I forgot the competition and the interest in games and how much edge that would provide in the kids right from ages 5-10... the sponsorship and funding are all the consequences and add up to the desire to compete again so contributing to the talents... The mere number of good players in china is way too much... and hence everything goes hand in hand mae...
But you can always compare to how much money an NFL or NBA player makes compared to a world no.1 badminton player... ;-)
Its hard to demolish China's dominance in this Sport. If they go down.. they will surely rise up again.
