Badminton

Badminton is a fascinating sport; to the untrained eye it’s almost impossible to tell what’s a winning shot. It looks like a player has just won the rally, when the rally ends up going on another 20 shots. As much grief as it gets in the United States for being an Olympic sport, it’s actually a very good staple of the Olympic program.

Tokyo 2020 results:

Medal	Men’s singles	Country
Gold	Victor Axelsen	Denmark
Silver	Chen Long	China
Bronze	Anthony Sinisuka Gintling	Indonesia
Medal	Men’s doubles	Country
Gold	Lee Yang Wang Chi-lin	Taiwan
Silver	Li Junhui Liu Yuchen	China
Bronze	Aaron Chia Soh Wooi Yik	Malaysia
Medal	Women’s singles	Country
Gold	Chen Yufei	China
Silver	Tai Tzu-ying	Taiwan
Bronze	P. V. Sindhu	India
Medal	Women’s doubles	Country
Gold	Greysia Polii Apriyani Rahayu	Indonesia
Silver	Chen Qingchen Jia Yifan	China
Bronze	Kim So-yeong Kong Hee-yong	South Korea
Medal	Mixed doubles	Country
Gold	Wang Yilyu Huang Dongping	China
Silver	Zheng Siwei Huang Yaqiong	China
Bronze	Yuta Watanabe Arisa Higashino	Japan

Outlook (as of June 26, 2023):

This is one of the sports China needs to do well in for their hopes of knocking the United States out of the top spot. They had two golds in Tokyo, but that wasn’t enough. However, in all three events that they didn’t win gold, they ended up with silver. That should be a concern for the U.S., because all the Chinese need to do is flip two of those three, and they take the medal count.

Of course, the inverse is also true. Perhaps China flips two of those silvers to golds, but then also has the golds swapped to silvers. But it’s not that easy! Keep in mind that one of those events was a gold-silver finish for China. So even if it was flipped, it’s still a China gold. Because of that, I’m going to be very bullish on China’s prospects in badminton for 2024.

Update (as of June 25, 2024):

Chinese players have rocketed up the men’s singles rankings, and China always does well at this event. Players from Indonesia are still high up there, but I have to add a Chinese player to my medal predictions, if not two. My women’s picks are the same as they were a year ago, except in different order. Doubles gold medal picks remain the same, but there are some changes in the other medals.

Projections:

Medal	Men’s singles	Country
Gold	Viktor Axelsen	Denmark
Silver	Shi Yugi	China
Bronze	Jonatan Christie	Indonesia
Medal	Men’s doubles	Country
Gold	Liang Wei Keng Wang Chang	China
Silver	Fajar Alfian Muhammad Rian Ardianto	Indonesia
Bronze	Satwiksairaj Rankireddy Chirag Shetty	India
Medal	Women’s singles	Country
Gold	Chen Yufei	China
Silver	An Se-young	South Korea
Bronze	Akane Yamaguchi	Japan
Medal	Women’s doubles	Country
Gold	Chen Qingchen Jia Yifan	China
Silver	Liu Shengshu Tan Ning	China
Bronze	Baek Ha-na Lee So-hee	South Korea
Medal	Mixed doubles	Country
Gold	Zheng Siwei Huang Yaqiong	China
Silver	Yuta Watanabe Arisa Higashino	Japan
Bronze	Feng Yanzhe Huang Dongping	China

Projected medal count:

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
China	4	2	1	7
Denmark	1	0	0	1
Japan	0	1	1	2
Indonesia	0	1	1	2
South Korea	0	1	1	2
India	0	0	1	1