Li Yongbo underplays China’s prospects in 2012 London Olympics – Badminton News
While the badminton critics are giving China better odds to perform a clean sweep in 2012 London Olympics, their chief coach Li Yongbo believes anything can happen in the mega event.
The badminton guru, who has guided national squad all the way to its glorious journey, stated that Olympic medals are second priority as they are only focusing to show up their best in coming edition of the esteemed badminton event.
China claimed three gold medals in 2008 Beijing Olympics and the nation wants campaigners to repeat history in a better way. However, Li Yongbo thinks this burden of expectations can affect his shuttlers’ performance.
He declared that they do not have any specific goals in their minds rather all the players will be looking to put just an honest effort.
He said, "When you aim high, the pressure will be rising, so we won't set any target for us and just do our best to get good results."
Meanwhile, selection committee took an interesting decision by preferring Women’s Singles expert Li Xuerui over the Asian Champion Wang Shixian.
This recent update ended all the speculations about the Women’s Singles squad of China as other two seats have already been reserved by World Number one Wang Yihan and Number two Wang Xin.
The other Olympic bound shuttlers are Lin Dan, Chen Long and Chen Jin in Men’s Singles event along with prime Men’s Doubles teams Cai Yun-Fu Haifeng and Guo Zhendong-Chai Biao.
Women’s Doubles flank will be represented by Wang Xiaoli-Yu Yang and Tian Qing-Zhao Yunlei while Mixed Doubles squad includes world class pairs like Xu Chen-Ma Jin and Zhang Nan-Zhao Yunlei.
National head coach Li Yongbo is satisfied with the strength of this squad as he declared that all shuttlers are in prime touch. However, in the same breath he also advised them to sweat hard to avoid becoming bleeding chips in the London Games.
He said, "The team is in good shape but it can't guarantee that we can win golds at London. There are eventualities in sport so the only thing is to get well prepared for the upcoming matches."
For the record, the badminton event in London Olympics will be in full swing from July 28 to August 5, 2012. It will be staged in Wembley Arena, the same place China secured five world titles last year.
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