These weeks Papendal is a nice base for training. Dutch olympic athletes as well as foreign athletes are busy with their final preparations for the Games. I met a couple of BMX athletes doing their power exercises. These guys are no match for the track cyclists but last week there was a German track cyclist, a very good one they say, who had legs as thick as all the legs of the Dutch Badminton selection together. To be honest I had to look twice before I realised that this was not a white gorilla which had escaped from some German Zoo.
While we are training like hell at Papendal the real Badminton top players will start to compete in London. I am really looking forward to following these matches. It’s great that in this edition the first rounds are played in groups i.s.o. the knock-out system from the beginning. This makes the tournament more attractive.
My preview of the men’s singles.
The 2008 Olympic Champion Lin Dan is again present. He has won all major titles once or twice and he will make himself an immortal champion if he would succeed to win his second Olympic gold medal. In fact I think that he will not have many problems to win because his main competitor from Malaysia, Lee Chong Wei, got a serious ankle injury in May.
For many consecutive years Lee Chong Wei was the number one of the world and the king of the super series tournaments. But he has no real big trophies. No gold medals at World Championships or Olympic Games. During the World Championships of 2011 in London he came close when he got 2 match points versus Lin Dan but the latter managed to survive and to grab the title. In May during the Thomas Cup final LCW sprained his ankle in his match versus the European legend Peter Gade.
Peter Gade has been at the World top for some 15 years now. In 1997 he already was ranked number one of the World and two years later he won the All England. Also Gade is bothered by the “LCW syndrome”. It also applies to him no World titles and at Olympic Games he never performed very well. The past 2 years it is noticeable that he has grown a bit too old for the World top although he still won a bronze medal at the 2011 World championships. After that his achievements started to deteriorate with an absolute low in April when he was beaten in the quarter finals of the European Championships.
China has 2 more trump cards. The bronze medallist of 2008 and 2010 World Champion Chen Jin managed to qualify for the games at the very last minute. The past year his performances were not really appealing. His last super series title was the Singapore Open in 2011. A salient detail is that his opponent in the finals was Lin Dan who was not feeling well at that time and didn’t play.
The third Chinese is Chen Long who is still very young and at this level still unexperienced. Nevertheless a dangerous outsider but not a real favourite for the title. Some day he will be able to defeat everybody but if he can at his first Olympic Games?
My prediction:
Gold: Lin Dan
Silver: Lee Chong Wei
Bronze: Chen Long
Tags: badminton, jorrit de ruiter, Londen, mens singles, Olympic Games, preview