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LONDON — Just 2 points stood between Lee Chong Wei and gold in the men’s badminton finals — and not just the modest amount of precious metal in the Olympics’ most coveted prize. He was also on the verge of winning a bar of gold worth more than $600,000.
Lin returning a shot in the men's badminton final. He also triumphed against Lee in Beijing in 2008.
That was the bounty offered by the Malaysian badminton enthusiast and gold mine owner Andrew Kam. In July, Kam announced that any badminton player who took home top honors in London would be rewarded with a roughly 25-pound bar of gold.
“This is my challenge to our players,” he said at the time. “I hope it will motivate them to try even harder.”
Lee looked motivated on Sunday, but his performance could be summed up this way: close but no gold bar.
He fell to his archrival and the reigning king of the game, Lin Dan of China, in a tense and mesmerizing 79-minute contest that ended 21-19 in the third and decisive game. The score had been tied, 19-19, but Lin played the final 3 points flawlessly, and in the last rally he stood and watched a shot by Lee sail an inch or two past the line.
When the shuttle was called out, Lin bolted into the empty space near the court at Wembley Arena, a display of ecstasy punctuated by tears, a flop on the floor and his go-to ritual: the shirt toss into the crowd.
His fans and Lee’s had done all they could to tilt the match. Asian fans at badminton matches carry on in ways that would have them tossed from Wimbledon. They chant in unison — variations of “Go, go” and the players’ names — not just between points but during points.
“You’ve got to understand, Lee is our national hero, because badminton is our national game,” said Rory Tan of Malaysia, who spoke with a Malaysian flag draped on his shoulders. “The way every kid in England plays football, every kid in Malaysia plays badminton.”
The fans from China are every bit as smitten, though there’s also a heartthrob element to the worship that Lin inspires.
“He’s so handsome!” said Jane Li, a native of China.
Lin also has Lee’s number. The two met in the finals of the Olympics in Beijing, and there, too, Lin won gold. More recently, Lin prevailed at a match in the world championship a year ago, played here. Lee lost after dropping two match points, an ending that he has said still haunts him.
This was Lee’s opportunity for revenge, and the proceedings had a kind of cage-match atmosphere. Two British announcers stood before the audience in the lead-up to the first point and seemed eager to banish the genteel, loping game many British imagine when they think of badminton.
“We’ve had a snapped Achilles’ tendon and knee pop out,” one said. “The wear and tear is very tough.”
The most lasting injury, of course, was not to an athlete, but to the sport itself, which endured a few days of infamy when four women’s doubles teams — one each from China and Indonesia and two from South Korea — were disqualified for intentionally trying to lose. All four teams calculated that by coming up short, they would face an easier-to-beat pair in the next round.
The wound caused by that scandal will probably not heal anytime soon, but the Lee-Lin showdown demonstrated what a riveting spectacle badminton can be when played all out. It’s a game of brute force and deft touch, with the shuttle traveling at more than 150 miles per hour after an overhead smash and at the pace of a crawl when dinked over the net.
Lin is a master of deception, skilled at faking left when he is shooting right, or hitting the shuttle soft and short when he leaps high and looks as if he is going to pummel it long. Lee, though, was rarely fooled. These two have played each other so many times, their rallies look like carefully choreographed dances executed at blazing speeds.
Lee won the first game, 21-15, but lost some of his concentration in the second, making 11 unforced errors in a 21-10 loss. Lee seemed to have a slight advantage in Game 3, and for a few minutes, it looked as if he would grab a 4- or 5-point lead. But he appeared flustered while leading, 8-5, after the referee reversed a call on a point he had won.
After that, it was one tie after another. At 19-19, the crowd was in something close to a frenzy, and the players —because of nerves or exhaustion — kept asking for breaks to have the court wiped down or to trade a used shuttle for a new one.
Then Lin went on his 3-point tear. After losing, Lee dropped to the ground and could offer only a lifeless hug when Lin came by during his celebration.
There was a news conference afterward, but as with many of these trilingual affairs, it was hard to glean much information. Lin is marrying, and he plans to invite Lee to the wedding; Lee will retire before the next Olympics; and at 19-19, each player was hoping the other would make a mistake.
No one had the heart to ask the despondent Lee what it felt like to come so close to a $600,000 payday. Which actually could have been more like a $1 million payday, because a Malaysian furniture store and a sports committee each offered about $315,000 for a gold medal in any sport.
What’s with all the financial incentives? Malaysia, a nation of more than 28 million, has never won an Olympic gold medal. That streak, it appears, is not over.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/0 ... badminton-gold.html
[ 本帖最后由 Bob 于 2012-8-6 09:45 编辑 ] |
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新鲜出炉ONESTEEL ASSESSMENT CENTER过程 (2008-5-20) 孽缘`倩儿 
发表于 2012-8-6 09:22
