No speculations about injury of Lin Dan, says BWF deputy president – Badminton News
The deputy president of Badminton World Federation (BWF) Paisan Rangsikitpho played down the chances of match fixing in Badminton Asia Championships and appealed to wait for the official reports of Lin Dan’s injury.
World Number two Lin Dan created a controversy by conceding a walkover due to sudden injury against his compatriot Chen Jin in semi-final of the event.
The critics tagged this suspicious walkover as deliberate effort to help World Number five Chen Jin in raising his ranking before May 3 to secure third spot for the country in the 2012 London Olympics.
BWF also had to face the music for the loopholes in Olympic qualifying format so deputy president of international body decided to cool down the temperature and declared that World Federation will review the matter.
Rangsikitpho said, “It isn’t fair to make a conclusion before seeing the reports from the tournament director, referee and the doctor. The BWF would rather wait before reviewing the matter.”
Asian Championships also served as Olympic qualifying tournament and offered valuable ranking points so Chen Jin was looking to unseat World Number four Peter Gade just to ensure his presence in the mega event.
This much criticised walkover from Lin Dan ultimately helped the lower ranked shuttler to bag third consecutive title and now he stands fair chance to book his ticket to London.
However, Paisan Rangsikitpho stated that BWF intends to examine the initial reports of Lin Dan to check whether he was actually hurt or just citing injury to quit the game.
He said, “In our BWF events, a team doctor’s report is usually re-examined by our official doctor if players have injured themselves or are floored by illness outside of the court area. We have no choice but wait for the reports.”
BWF usually appoints official medical team in every tournament but this time no one was there to look at the matter.
Chinese have done this in the past as well when Lin Dan helped his compatriot Chen Long to elevate his ranking and now he holds third position in world ranking.
The deputy president of World Federation also indicated that they are thinking to change Olympic qualification criterion and a simple merit system is likely to be introduced for future Olympic events.
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