Champions again: Taiwan’s Lee Yang (left) and Wang Chi-Lin celebrate after beating China’s Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang to retain the men’s doubles gold. — Reuters
PETALING JAYA: It looked like everything went downhill for Taiwan’s men’s doubles pair Lee Yang-Wang Chi-lin after winning their first Olympics gold at the 2021 Tokyo edition.
They stopped playing badminton for a month when Chi-lin tried out singing while Lee Yang went on to partner Lu Chen. When they got back together after the short break, they struggled to produce results.
Lee Yang-Chi-lin only won the 2023 Japan Open and finished second at the 2022 Taiwan Open and at last year’s Hylo Open and Korean Masters.
In fact, they almost missed the boat for this Olympics as they were in a close battle with teammates Lee Jhe-huei-Yang Po-hsuan and only made the cut at the eleventh hour.
But it all changed in Paris.
The unseeded duo completed a remarkable turnaround by successfully defending their Olympics gold medal by stunning China’s world No. 1 Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang 21-17, 18-21, 21-19 in a thrilling final at Adidas Arena in Port de la Chapelle yesterday.
Lee Yang was thrilled to prove the doubters wrong.
“Last time in Tokyo not a lot of people knew us but this time a lot of people could recognise us,” Lee Yang told the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
“In the past three years we didn’t play that well. Before we came to Paris we heard some voices that they didn’t want us to represent Taiwan.
“I’m happy that with such tough competition and being in the toughest group, we still managed to win the gold medal. I’m very happy that our efforts were seen by everyone.”
The world No. 12 Taiwanese pair were placed in the group of death along with Denmark’s world No. 2 Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, Japan’s 2021 world champions Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi, China’s world No. 9 Liu Yuchen-Ou Xuanyi and Americans Vinson Chiu-Joshua Yuan.Lee Yang-Chi-lin, though, rose to the occasion to win all their matches to finish top of the group and reach the last eight in style.
The duo proved that the Olympics brings out something special in them when they defeated Thailand’s Supak Jomkoh-Kittinupong Kedren and Astrup-Rasmussen again to make it into the final before completing their fairytale run with their second gold.
Lee Yang-Chi-lin have now become the first men’s doubles pair to win two Olympic golds.
Previously, China great Fu Haifeng also won two golds but with different partners - Cai Yun (2012 London) and Zhang Nan (2016 Rio de Janeiro).
