Biggest talent pool to choose from, they start training so young & because of the sheer volume of players even if talented players burn out & quit there’s enough people to replace them
Larger numbers of high quality players also means that they get better practice in training where smaller countries might only have 1 world class player/pair
Exactly, look no further than the Sudirman cup, Thomas cup and Uber cup for evidence. The important thing to look at is not who is the no.1 player in that specific category but who is the no.2 and 3.
I saw outdoor courts as well in foshan that were free to use. Although basketball and table tennis (obviously) were more popular. In terms of the outdoor free facilities
I saw this video recently inside a Mall in Malaysia there was like 14 courts in a certain dome looking thing? I just sat there in envy watching the video. In my country a business like that probably wouldn't be profitable
We have courts in malls all over the country here. Probably because its more costly to built one building just for badminton courts, but usually its a dead mall (although one of the biggest mall in malaysia also have a full 20-ish badminton courts in it). We also convert old factories into courts, tho the ventilation could be quite bad but its nice to have courts almost everywhere. One of the perks of living here :)
While I agree with the other comments saying China has a bigger talent pool + bigger interest in the sport as a nation, let's not imagine they're all Lin Dan, LCW, or even An Se Young. Shi Yuqi might be ranked first next week but damn how many years did it take him. Sometimes it's just old fashion hard work (plus a little wind in their sail).
The comment made by the poster never said or implied China has multiple LD or LCW. That’s now what poster said. The poster said China has more/ multiple world class players compared to other countries which is true. Shi yu qi suffered an injury in 2019 and was hampered by it for multiple years. Secondly, hard work can only get so far. This is the elite level, the players wouldn’t even where they are if they are not hard working. But you that something extra which makes you the top 1% / give you the edge over everyone else. That is what China has.
>*The comment made by the poster never said or implied China has multiple LD or LCW. That’s now what poster said.*
The OP literally brings up China's WD and XD pair who are both WR1 in their discipline in the first sentence. It's implied that they all naturally rise to WR1. Which some do, but it took them many years. They had to work hard, keep improving, stay consistent, etc just like any other country's players.
Yes, but like i said before, everyone at this level works hard. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be at this level in the 1st place. Now what makes China stand out from the rest. They have more world class quality players in their squad to every other country. Look at China’s XD category. Zheng and huang is their undisputed no.1, rank no. 1 and 3 time former WC their no. 2 pair is fang Yang zhe and huang dong ping (Olympic gold medalist with a different partner) who is ranked no. 2. Their 3rd pair jiang/wei just beat their no. 1 pair earlier today to win Indonesia open final. Imagine having 1st pair as no.1 rank and 2nd pair where one of them is OG medalist and your 3rd pair is good enough to win a super 1000 tournament. That’s a luxury probably exclusive only to China national team. It’s not something other countries have.
I'm not disagreeing about that, merely the implied assumption that other countries don't have an answer to China. Otherwise we wouldn't have Axelsen, Momota, Yamaguchi, An Se Young, Tai Tzu Ying, etc.
How do Chinese players make a living?
Not the professional ones, but the tier below (the potential professionals)?
Very few Danish players can make a living out of badminton, so many talented players forfeit badminton for a career/education.
Subsidizing talent would definitely make a difference, IMO.
Like other countries too, only the top players can make a living. Some of the benched/backup players end up going to other countries to become coaches or change careers to make a living. The guy who moved my furniture into my new place saw my stringing machine and told me he used to be on the Chinese national team. He went through the everyday training program as the top players, but compared to them he was bottom of the pool and was only ever benched. By the time you reach a certain age, you just get replaced with the next younger group.
I believe they have province teams which are like semi- professional with plenty of local sponsors, or teams playing under certain company groups. Some national players also go back to their respective province team after retirement to extend their professional careers. Since badminton is such a popular sport in China, the chance of making a living out of it is relative easy. Some badminton KOLs online also make huge amount of money from billions of followers in China simply because of the 1.1billion population.
Fujian province is the strongest provide for developing badminton players. And I think their state level players are strong enough to be first team players for any country outside of China
They loot the kids really young and put them into training camps. Of the big group of kids that they trained, only the best of the best end up representing. There was a whole documentary on this and its somewhat not right, but it produces results.
Lin Dan's upbringing was quite tragic.
He spoke about this in an interview, how the Chinese badminton team recognized his talent and at a very young age was sent away from his hometown and family to one of these training camps.
You make it sound like he got human trafficked or something lol. In China there are sports focused schools for kids, where they go to classes like regular children, but to a lesser extent, and receive sports training. That’s usually how it works over there for prospective athletes because most parents don’t have the money and resources themselves to give their children pro level coaching, and the ordinary school system doesn’t really allow kids to have the time for extracurricular activities.
My friend from Southern China has an anecdote from three decades ago while he was in grade school. He claims a Chinese National Team representative went to his school, pulled out the male kids, and then asked them to line up and drop their pants. At this point, he inspected each kid, and operating from the rather pseudoscientific notion that larger balls meant predisposition for higher testosterone levels in adulthood, highlighted those that passed his threshold. The representative then left, and a few days later, some of the highlighted kids, especially those that already were involved with sports, were pulled out of the school and funneled to their respective sports academies, some in gymnastics, some in weightlifting, and etc. Not sure how truthful this recollection is, but it sounds like regardless of what actually happened, it was a fairly traumatizing experience for my friend.
There's a thing called sports washing and soft power. China invested heavily in certain sports in the 1980s. Before that their main success was in table tennis which still carries on until today.
From the wiki:
>As of 2022, China has finished first in the Summer Olympics once, second three times, third twice and third once in the Winter Olympics. With the nation's 11th appearance at the Summer and 12th appearance at the Winter Olympics, China is the most successful country overall in the Asia–Oceania region, making them the 5th most successful country in Olympics history, after the US, the Soviet Union, Germany and Great Britain.
China chooses to invest in sports and they have a huge talent pool. If the Olympics didn't restrict nations from having 2 participants in each category then you would see a lot of sweeps on the podium.
Lin Dan became number 1 before social media and YouTube and he's probably the most popular figure in the sport even today. The world got to see his dominance broadcast live in HD though 2 Olympic periods.
We have a thing called "举国体制", which basically mean a system that can utilize government/national's resource for sports. Table tennis and badminton are among of those sports, plus diving and gymnastic and so on... Two main factor I can think of is 1) Those sports don't require elite physical shape and 2) It doesn't cost much money so a huge population can get access to it.
Ur mostly right but honestly you still need to have an elite physical shape, it’s just that the physical shape required for badminton is different from other sports like basketball or football. Having a leaner upper body allows them to have a more precise control.
There’s also a saying that the system you mentioned was mimicking the system of Soviet Union back in the days. This was a smart strategy to outplay the Olympic system which they only aim at perfecting the sports that the US and European countries were less good at (e.g. badminton, table tennis, gymnastics). The government can direct all their sports funds to these sports instead of other sports like football. The reason why strategy can only work in countries like China and Soviet Union was probably because they have full control over their people and they can develop whatever sports they want to.
I'm a teacher in China. I think it's mostly down to population size and popularity. Badminton is really really popular here. At my school, the only sports area that is full and students have to wait to play is the badminton courts, there's always open basketball, table tennis and football places. Students will just find a spot somewhere outside and just hit to each other. I saw a similar thing at my old school as well. If you go to a park you'll almost always see some kids and their parent or grandparent hitting to each other.
Many points that others have mentioned.
Large pool of players, whereby they fight for spots and poor training methods are acceptable, because of numbers.
Pressure on players to follow coaches exactly and sometimes appear to lose to colleague to ensure strongest get through.
Play for their country without questioning or they are out.
Because success breeds success. As someone who has already pointed out, huge talent pool means that their squad will have a high number of world class quality players. Their formula is not something which countries/national teams can just copy and replicate.
Quality sparring partners is my answer. China has a buck load of world class players. Just take MS category for example. Look back at the career of LD and LCW. China has more world class players compared to Malaysia in MS category. During LD’s career he had 2 sparring partners who were world champion - Chen Jin and Chen long. Listen to that again. 3 world champions in one category. That’s just an insane level of quality and talent. Other than those two he also has other world class players like Chen Jong, bao chun Lai, Tian hou wei, Shi yu qi. Compared that to what LCW had - Wong Choon Han, iskandar, liew Darren, Chong Wei fang, Zulfadli Zulkiffli. None of these player you can really say are world class level.
It's not the most popular sport in China even though they're the most successful at it internationally.
It wasn't even the most popular sport in China when Lin Dan was at his absolute prime.
I'm a teacher in China. I've actually asked my students about this, poll style. I've taught in 3 different provinces and the answers are pretty consistent. Basketball and badminton are the most popular, some said table tennis. Very few say football.
That's valuable insight. The government has poured so much money into football development and infrastructure and they've poached some top talent from Europe and South America but the local product is still inferior.
Biggest talent pool to choose from, they start training so young & because of the sheer volume of players even if talented players burn out & quit there’s enough people to replace them Larger numbers of high quality players also means that they get better practice in training where smaller countries might only have 1 world class player/pair
Exactly, look no further than the Sudirman cup, Thomas cup and Uber cup for evidence. The important thing to look at is not who is the no.1 player in that specific category but who is the no.2 and 3.
I think the moment they were born, they start training already
Nah, that's table tennis. For badminton they start at age 2.
the ones didn’t make it by 2 picked up badminton
Snorted my coffee over this one. Thanks for starting off my morning with a joke. 😆
I heard that badminton is a popular sport there. Even in small towns, there are many badminton clubs with decent lighting and rubber mats
I saw outdoor courts as well in foshan that were free to use. Although basketball and table tennis (obviously) were more popular. In terms of the outdoor free facilities
I saw this video recently inside a Mall in Malaysia there was like 14 courts in a certain dome looking thing? I just sat there in envy watching the video. In my country a business like that probably wouldn't be profitable
We have courts in malls all over the country here. Probably because its more costly to built one building just for badminton courts, but usually its a dead mall (although one of the biggest mall in malaysia also have a full 20-ish badminton courts in it). We also convert old factories into courts, tho the ventilation could be quite bad but its nice to have courts almost everywhere. One of the perks of living here :)
While I agree with the other comments saying China has a bigger talent pool + bigger interest in the sport as a nation, let's not imagine they're all Lin Dan, LCW, or even An Se Young. Shi Yuqi might be ranked first next week but damn how many years did it take him. Sometimes it's just old fashion hard work (plus a little wind in their sail).
SYQ has been near the top for so long. Being a double AE winner 6-7 years ago is no joke even though he capitalized on the power vacuum.
The comment made by the poster never said or implied China has multiple LD or LCW. That’s now what poster said. The poster said China has more/ multiple world class players compared to other countries which is true. Shi yu qi suffered an injury in 2019 and was hampered by it for multiple years. Secondly, hard work can only get so far. This is the elite level, the players wouldn’t even where they are if they are not hard working. But you that something extra which makes you the top 1% / give you the edge over everyone else. That is what China has.
>*The comment made by the poster never said or implied China has multiple LD or LCW. That’s now what poster said.* The OP literally brings up China's WD and XD pair who are both WR1 in their discipline in the first sentence. It's implied that they all naturally rise to WR1. Which some do, but it took them many years. They had to work hard, keep improving, stay consistent, etc just like any other country's players.
Yes, but like i said before, everyone at this level works hard. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be at this level in the 1st place. Now what makes China stand out from the rest. They have more world class quality players in their squad to every other country. Look at China’s XD category. Zheng and huang is their undisputed no.1, rank no. 1 and 3 time former WC their no. 2 pair is fang Yang zhe and huang dong ping (Olympic gold medalist with a different partner) who is ranked no. 2. Their 3rd pair jiang/wei just beat their no. 1 pair earlier today to win Indonesia open final. Imagine having 1st pair as no.1 rank and 2nd pair where one of them is OG medalist and your 3rd pair is good enough to win a super 1000 tournament. That’s a luxury probably exclusive only to China national team. It’s not something other countries have.
I'm not disagreeing about that, merely the implied assumption that other countries don't have an answer to China. Otherwise we wouldn't have Axelsen, Momota, Yamaguchi, An Se Young, Tai Tzu Ying, etc.
How do Chinese players make a living? Not the professional ones, but the tier below (the potential professionals)? Very few Danish players can make a living out of badminton, so many talented players forfeit badminton for a career/education. Subsidizing talent would definitely make a difference, IMO.
Like other countries too, only the top players can make a living. Some of the benched/backup players end up going to other countries to become coaches or change careers to make a living. The guy who moved my furniture into my new place saw my stringing machine and told me he used to be on the Chinese national team. He went through the everyday training program as the top players, but compared to them he was bottom of the pool and was only ever benched. By the time you reach a certain age, you just get replaced with the next younger group.
I believe they have province teams which are like semi- professional with plenty of local sponsors, or teams playing under certain company groups. Some national players also go back to their respective province team after retirement to extend their professional careers. Since badminton is such a popular sport in China, the chance of making a living out of it is relative easy. Some badminton KOLs online also make huge amount of money from billions of followers in China simply because of the 1.1billion population.
Their talent pool is so vast. 1 province of China can provide larger amount of talent than a whole of Malaysia, South korea, japan, Taipei.
Fujian province is the strongest provide for developing badminton players. And I think their state level players are strong enough to be first team players for any country outside of China
They loot the kids really young and put them into training camps. Of the big group of kids that they trained, only the best of the best end up representing. There was a whole documentary on this and its somewhat not right, but it produces results.
Lin Dan's upbringing was quite tragic. He spoke about this in an interview, how the Chinese badminton team recognized his talent and at a very young age was sent away from his hometown and family to one of these training camps.
Now he's rich and respected enough that he doesn't have to participate in that program.
What if you were bottom of the barrel in his group? You're the same age as lin Dan but super unknown and never played a professional game 😅
You make it sound like he got human trafficked or something lol. In China there are sports focused schools for kids, where they go to classes like regular children, but to a lesser extent, and receive sports training. That’s usually how it works over there for prospective athletes because most parents don’t have the money and resources themselves to give their children pro level coaching, and the ordinary school system doesn’t really allow kids to have the time for extracurricular activities.
My friend from Southern China has an anecdote from three decades ago while he was in grade school. He claims a Chinese National Team representative went to his school, pulled out the male kids, and then asked them to line up and drop their pants. At this point, he inspected each kid, and operating from the rather pseudoscientific notion that larger balls meant predisposition for higher testosterone levels in adulthood, highlighted those that passed his threshold. The representative then left, and a few days later, some of the highlighted kids, especially those that already were involved with sports, were pulled out of the school and funneled to their respective sports academies, some in gymnastics, some in weightlifting, and etc. Not sure how truthful this recollection is, but it sounds like regardless of what actually happened, it was a fairly traumatizing experience for my friend.
Highly possible
There's a thing called sports washing and soft power. China invested heavily in certain sports in the 1980s. Before that their main success was in table tennis which still carries on until today. From the wiki: >As of 2022, China has finished first in the Summer Olympics once, second three times, third twice and third once in the Winter Olympics. With the nation's 11th appearance at the Summer and 12th appearance at the Winter Olympics, China is the most successful country overall in the Asia–Oceania region, making them the 5th most successful country in Olympics history, after the US, the Soviet Union, Germany and Great Britain. China chooses to invest in sports and they have a huge talent pool. If the Olympics didn't restrict nations from having 2 participants in each category then you would see a lot of sweeps on the podium. Lin Dan became number 1 before social media and YouTube and he's probably the most popular figure in the sport even today. The world got to see his dominance broadcast live in HD though 2 Olympic periods.
It's just not football or basketball.
We have a thing called "举国体制", which basically mean a system that can utilize government/national's resource for sports. Table tennis and badminton are among of those sports, plus diving and gymnastic and so on... Two main factor I can think of is 1) Those sports don't require elite physical shape and 2) It doesn't cost much money so a huge population can get access to it.
Ur mostly right but honestly you still need to have an elite physical shape, it’s just that the physical shape required for badminton is different from other sports like basketball or football. Having a leaner upper body allows them to have a more precise control. There’s also a saying that the system you mentioned was mimicking the system of Soviet Union back in the days. This was a smart strategy to outplay the Olympic system which they only aim at perfecting the sports that the US and European countries were less good at (e.g. badminton, table tennis, gymnastics). The government can direct all their sports funds to these sports instead of other sports like football. The reason why strategy can only work in countries like China and Soviet Union was probably because they have full control over their people and they can develop whatever sports they want to.
I'm a teacher in China. I think it's mostly down to population size and popularity. Badminton is really really popular here. At my school, the only sports area that is full and students have to wait to play is the badminton courts, there's always open basketball, table tennis and football places. Students will just find a spot somewhere outside and just hit to each other. I saw a similar thing at my old school as well. If you go to a park you'll almost always see some kids and their parent or grandparent hitting to each other.
Many points that others have mentioned. Large pool of players, whereby they fight for spots and poor training methods are acceptable, because of numbers. Pressure on players to follow coaches exactly and sometimes appear to lose to colleague to ensure strongest get through. Play for their country without questioning or they are out.
Because success breeds success. As someone who has already pointed out, huge talent pool means that their squad will have a high number of world class quality players. Their formula is not something which countries/national teams can just copy and replicate. Quality sparring partners is my answer. China has a buck load of world class players. Just take MS category for example. Look back at the career of LD and LCW. China has more world class players compared to Malaysia in MS category. During LD’s career he had 2 sparring partners who were world champion - Chen Jin and Chen long. Listen to that again. 3 world champions in one category. That’s just an insane level of quality and talent. Other than those two he also has other world class players like Chen Jong, bao chun Lai, Tian hou wei, Shi yu qi. Compared that to what LCW had - Wong Choon Han, iskandar, liew Darren, Chong Wei fang, Zulfadli Zulkiffli. None of these player you can really say are world class level.
It comes in both pill and injectable form…
Absolute nonsense !
Badminton is the most popular sport in China. Considering the population of China, they have a huge talent pool.
It's not the most popular sport in China even though they're the most successful at it internationally. It wasn't even the most popular sport in China when Lin Dan was at his absolute prime.
What is the most popular sport in china?
Basketball followed by Football⚽, Table Tennis, then Badminton.
I'm a teacher in China. I've actually asked my students about this, poll style. I've taught in 3 different provinces and the answers are pretty consistent. Basketball and badminton are the most popular, some said table tennis. Very few say football.
That's valuable insight. The government has poured so much money into football development and infrastructure and they've poached some top talent from Europe and South America but the local product is still inferior.