PETALING JAYA – The hopes and dreams of an entire nation rests once again on national shuttler Datuk Lee Chong Wei as he seeks to finally end Malaysia’s gold medal drought at the Olympics on Saturday at the Riocentro Pavilion 4 in Rio de Janeiro.
Malaysia’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics will face China’s Chen Long after the latter took just 48 minutes to defeat Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen 21-14, 21-15 in their semi-final encounter on Friday.
The men’s singles gold medal match will be a showdown between Lee, the world’s top ranked player and Chen Long, the world No. 2, for the glory of an Olympic gold medal.
The 33-year-old Lee is certainly the favourite to win the match. However, defeating Chen Long, a bronze medal winner at the 2012 London Olympics, will certainly not be an easy task.
Going head-to-head, Lee has only a slightly better record compared to his opponent with 13 wins to Chen Long’s 12 victories.
However, Lee’s recent performances against the 27-year-old Chinese player are encouraging, as he has won the last four encounters, most recently at the 2016 Asian Badminton Championships in April.
On Friday, Lee defeated Lin Dan in the first semi-final match, only the 12th time he has won against his rival in 37 meetings, to book his spot at the final.
The semi-final match between the two ended 15-21, 21-11, 22-20.
This is the third consecutive Olympic final that Lee has qualified for.
Lin Dan had previously relegated Lee to two silver medals, after defeating him at the final in Beijing in 2008 and again at the final in London four years later.
This is the 15th time that Malaysia has participated in the Olympics. No Malaysian athlete has ever won an Olympic gold medal.
The gold medal match is scheduled to start at around 8.20pm on Saturday.
AFP, Reuters, The Straits Times
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