Ahn Se-young. Photo = Getty Images Korea
Badminton Korea, which is improving the level of perfection in the generational change, will be put to the test once again. He is aiming for a gold medal at the 2022 World Individual Badminton Championships for the first time in eight years. It is even more urgent because they only achieved no gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games.
South Korea will enter 17 players, including women’s singles Ahn Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance), women’s doubles Lee So-hee-Shin Seung-chan (from Incheon International Airport), and men’s singles men’s singles Huh Kwang-hee (Samsung Life Insurance) for this tournament, which will open in Tokyo, Japan on the 21st.
In this tournament, which marks its 27th anniversary this year, Korea is ranked 4th with 10 gold, 14 silver, and 13 bronze medals. It is thanks to Park Joo-bong, who has harvested the most gold medals in the tournament, 5, and Kim Dong-moon, who has three gold medals around his neck. However, since Go Seong-hyeon and Shin Baek-cheol, Lee Yong-dae and Yoo Yeon-yeon, and Kim Ki-jung and Kim Sa-rang took gold, silver and bronze medals in the men’s doubles event in 2014, the gold chain has not exploded. In particular, in 2018 and 2019, he took the humiliation of winning the no medal for the second time in a row.
However, Korea has won three gold medals each at the Korea Open and Korea Masters, including retaking the Uber Cup for the first time in 12 years this year, signaling the success of the generational change. In particular, with Ahn Se-young, who is ranked 3rd in the women’s singles world ranking, So-hee Lee, Seung-chan Shin, So-young Kim (Incheon International Airport), Hee-yong Gong (Jeonbuk Bank), Hye-jeong Kim (Samsung Life)-Jung, who are ranked 3, 4, and 10 respectively in the women’s doubles world rankings Naeun (Hwasun County Office) and others stand out. In the men’s team, Sol-gyu Choi and Seung-jae Seo (above the Armed Forces Athletic Unit) ranked 11th in the doubles world ranking, and Heo Kwang-hee, ranked 32nd in the world singles ranking, is showing off their potential.
Ahn Se-young’s condition, which was considered a variable, is also close to normal. She said Ahn Se-young withdrew from her ankle injury during a match against her teammate Ga-eun Kim in the women’s singles final at her finals on the 11th of the event, but she is said to have not interfered with her participation in the event. She said last month she was the closest to her gold medal in this tournament as she defeated her natural enemy Chen Yu Fei (China) in the finals of the Malaysian Masters last month.
Reporter Kwon Jae-min [email protected] View more articles by reporter
