SEPANG, July 23 (Bernama) -- Malaysian singles ace Datuk Lee Chong Wei has
an easy path when he was balloted to compete against with the world''s 45th
ranked player, Ville Lang from Finland, in Group A for the Olympic Games which
scheduled to begin this Saturday.
However, the path was not so easy for Malaysian top doubles Koo Kien
Keat/Tan Boon Heong and mixed doubles Chan Peng Soon/Goh Liu Ying.
Koo and Tan are scheduled to play against world''s top doubles Chung Jae
Sung/Lee Yong Dae from South Korea, Indonesia''s Howard Bach/Tony Gunawan and
Naoki Kawamae/Shoji Sato of Japan in Group D.
Mixed doubles, Chan and Goh, on the other hand, are scheduled to play
against world''s number two pairs Xu Chen/Ma Jin from China, Sudket
Prapakamol/Saralee Thoungthongkam from Thailand and Chen Hung Ling/Cheng Wan
Hsing from Taiwan in Group D.
Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek said the mission to
win the country''s first Olympic gold medal for badminton seemed promising as the
national ace had an easy path in the round robin format.
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SPORTS-OLYMPICS (BADMINTON) 2 (LAST) SEPANG LAGI
"Playing in the round robin format will be a warm up exercise for Chong Wei
and I hope that will help him to gain the rhythm for the real game.
"It is also an advantage for Koo/Tan when they were balloted to have quite a
difficult path in the early stage because if they get through it, I''m sure that
will boost their confidence level to play in the next round," he said when met
at the KL International Airport (KLIA) Sepang, tonight.
Under the new round robin format beginning with this edition of the Olympic
Games in London, the singles players will be divided into 16 groups with each
group comprising four players.
Only the champion of each group will advance on a knock-out basis.
For the doubles, 16 pairs will compete in four groups, also on a round robin
format, before the two best pairs from each group meet on knock out basis.
-- BERNAMA
NS HK NHA
