Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen on Sunday fulfilled a childhood dream by beating the legendary Lin Dan in straight games to claim the men’s singles gold at the Badminton World Championships in Glasgow.
At 33, Lin was going for a record sixth title, but he had to settle for second-best after a 20-22, 16-21 defeat.
“It was my dream to be in a world final,” said Axelsen, the 2014 World and last year’s Olympic bronze medalist. “But it is unbelievable to beat Lin Dan. I have been watching him for years. Today, I maybe appeared confident, but inside I was shaking like a little child.”
Photo: Reuters
For Lin, it was a tough defeat.
“If I had won the first game, the result might have been different, but in the second, all the pressure was on me,” he said.
As to his future, he was unclear.
“I don’t have time to think,” he said. “I go home tomorrow and the Chinese National Games start the day after. Then I play in the Japan Open. After that, I have no plans. It will be difficult to play in the World Championships at 34.”
In a superb women’s singles final, Nozomi Okuhara became the first Japanese player to win a World gold singles medal with a stunning 21-19, 20-22, 22-20 victory over India’s Pusarla Sindhu.
The match lasted 110 minutes — easily the longest of the championships — and neither player could have given more. In the end, the tenacious Okuhara came out on top.
The second game ended with the rally of the match lasting over 50 shots, and it was Sindhu who won it with a great drop-shot.
However, the Indian started to irritate both the crowd and the umpire by going for the towel and taking too much time between shots. Eventually, at 12-12 in the third, she was given a warning.
The only other Japanese gold at a World Championships came from Etsuko Toganoo and Emiko Ueno in the women’s doubles at the very first 1977 championships.
Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota had a chance to repeat that success, but they had to settle for silver after losing 18-21, 21-17, 15-21 in the final to China’s Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan.
China collected a second gold in the men’s doubles with Liu Cheng and Zhang Nan scoring a comfortable 21-10, 21-17 win over the relatively new and unseeded Indonesian pair, Mohammad Ahsan and Rian Agung Saputro.
However, Indonesia did claim a title: Olympic champions Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir snatched the mixed doubles from Chinese top seeds Zhieng Siwei and Chen Qingchen.
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