Category: Guide

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  • History Lesson | Badminton World Championships year over year, China 70 gold 3 times bagged 5 golds

    The World Badminton Championships is a late-born single World Championship in the family of world sports, and for quite some time the All England Badminton Open played the role of the number one single event in the world badminton world, recognised by outsiders as the unofficial World Championships.

    The first World Badminton Championships, organised by the former BWF, was held in Malmö, Sweden, in 1977, which should have been a happy event to be celebrated. Regrettably, some people in the BWF organisation of that time ignored the legitimate demands of some member countries and insisted on their unreasonable election system, which hindered the development of badminton in the world. Under these circumstances, Thailand, Pakistan, Nigeria and other member countries broke away from the BWF and co-founded the former World Badminton Federation (WBF) with China.

    The first and second World Championships of the former Badminton World Federation were held in 1978 and 1979 respectively. The first tournament was held in Bangkok, Thailand, where Chinese players won four gold medals in five events, with Yu Yaodong winning the men’s singles and the men’s doubles with veteran Hou Gachang. Shanghai’s Aileen Zhang won two gold medals in women’s singles and women’s doubles (with Li Fang). The second edition of the tournament, held in Hangzhou, China, saw three gold medals for the more skilled national players, with Han Jian winning the Men’s Singles, 17-year-old Han Aiping having the last laugh in the Women’s Singles, and Sun Zhi’an/Yao Ximing winning the Men’s Doubles.

    During this period, the former BWF also organised two World Championships. Like the former BWF World Championships, neither tournament attracted all the best players in the world of badminton, and the World Championships existed in name only.

    A new period in history brought the two organisations together. In 1981, the BWF and the WBF merged to form the new BWF, and the Chinese Badminton Association became a full member of the joint BWF, allowing Chinese players, who had not been able to participate in the world’s most prestigious tournaments for a long time, to showcase their talents on a higher stage.

    The 3rd World Championships was held in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1983, and since then this event has become the highest level of international badminton single event, and at the same time changed to be held once every two years. At that World Championships, Chinese players won two gold medals and became the biggest winners, with women’s singles rookies Li Lingwei, Han Aiping and Zhang Ailing taking the top 3 places, and women’s doubles players Lin Ying/Wu Dixi winning the women’s doubles title.

    So far, the World Badminton Championships have been held for 23 times, producing a total of 125 gold medals, with China being the top winner, winning 70 gold medals, accounting for 56% of the total. It is worth mentioning that in three of these tournaments, a single team has won all five gold medals, a miracle achieved by the world’s top badminton team, China, which did so in 1987, 2010 and 2011.

    Traditional powerhouses Indonesia, Denmark and South Korea won 22, 10.5 and 10 gold medals respectively, ranking second to fourth. Thailand, England, Spain and Japan won two golds each, while Hong Kong, China, Sweden and the United States won one gold each. As we all know, Malaysia is the international badminton world is recognised as a traditional powerhouse, has won the Thomas Cup 5 times, but in the Olympic Games, the World Championships reflecting the highest level of the single event, the country’s several generations of masters, but repeatedly rubbed gold, to superstar Lee Chong Wei, for example, he was 3 times, 4 times in the Olympic Games, the World Championships men’s singles runner-up.

    World Championships gold king is South Korea’s famous Park Chu-bong and China’s Lin Dan, Zhao Yunlei, three of them each won the World Championships gold medal five times.

    Park Joo-bong was a doubles wizard from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, winning gold medals in the men’s doubles and mixed doubles events two and three times respectively. Former national player Zhao Yunlei, who retired two years ago, has won two and three gold medals each in women’s doubles and mixed doubles. In contrast, Lin Dan has had the most difficulty in winning gold medals as all his five gold medals have been achieved in one event, men’s singles.

    The six men who have won four gold medals are former national players Li Lingwei, Gao Diamond, Cai orn/Fu Haifeng, Zhang Nan and Indonesian star Nasir.

    Li Lingwei is a former singles queen of the badminton world, who won gold medals in women’s singles and women’s doubles 2 times each in the mid to late 1980s. Gao Diamond was a famous doubles player at the beginning of this century, winning gold in women’s doubles and mixed doubles 3 times and once respectively. Fengyun is the premier men’s doubles team in the history of Chinese badminton, and also one of the few men’s doubles wizards in the international badminton arena so far. The two of them have won the men’s doubles World Championships four times together, including three World Championships titles from 2009 to 2011 and four men’s doubles gold medals at the London 2012 Olympic Games in the London Olympics cycle, creating an unprecedented Golden Slam in the Olympic cycle in the badminton world’s history. Zhang Nan won the mixed doubles gold medal three times, and he tasted the men’s doubles gold medal for the first time in the last World Championships. Nasir is an evergreen in the world badminton world, back in 2005 World Championships she and Nova teamed up to win the mixed doubles title, since then she and Nova, Amadeus won the mixed doubles gold medal once and twice respectively.

  • Knowledge of foot type classification

    Human toes can be categorised into Egyptian foot, Roman foot and Greek foot according to their length.

     

    1. Greek foot, also known as Morton’s toe, is a common anomaly in the front of the foot. The main feature of Morton’s toe is that the second toe is longer than the big toe. The main reason for this is that the first metatarsal bone is less than the normal ratio of length compared to the second metatarsal bone. This deformity can lead to a variety of injuries such as back pain, lumbago, and pelvic malposition.

     

    The probable cause of these conditions is the deterioration of stability in the front of the foot, where the prominent second metatarsal alone bears the anterior force, supported by the two-point support formed by the second metatarsal and the heel, which is much less stable than the triangular shape formed by the first and fifth metatarsals and the heel.

     

    The length of the second toe is longer than the other four toes is “Greek feet”, people with this foot type usually have long limbs, almost always out of the right handsome girl.

     


     

    2. Egyptian foot foot type is the most common, most of the Asian boys belong to this type of foot type, thumb long tend to pick shoes to pay special attention to, too narrow pointed shoes are easy to let the thumb by extrusion deformation. The thumb is longer than the other toes, and the toes show a slope.

     


     

    3. Roman foot this kind of foot is less common, this foot type of people 5 toes length are almost long, no special prominent toes, feel more quadrilateral broad, also known as square feet. But the Roman foot type people can set off the square toe shoes more fashionable sense and modify the foot type. The length of the five toes is almost long.

     


     

    Extended profile

    “Most Chinese people have Greek feet with a long second toe.” Jiang Qing told reporters that there is actually no particularly obvious difference between the advantages and disadvantages of each foot type. “Because the main function of the foot is to bear weight and have a certain degree of bounciness, and the toes, as a small part, bear very little function in terms of weight bearing and bounciness, so there is no obvious difference between the advantages and disadvantages of different foot types.”

    From the Egyptian foot can be divided into the Anglo-Saxon foot type, in which the ball of the foot tapers backward and the heel is also narrow, and the Germanic foot type, in which the forefoot is distinctly large and the heel is narrow. Baltic foot type, that is, the Egyptian foot in the foot metatarsal and heel wider a variant, mostly found in the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, etc..

  • Pull and drop vs assault, two basic tactics for amateur singles

    Pull and drop vs assault, two basic tactics for amateur singles

    1. Pull, lob and assault, can amateurs really play it?

    For professional singles, pull, lob and assault are common tactics. According to different personal skills and physical abilities, some people pull more, some people assault more, and with the changes in physical ability, on-the-spot state and other conditions, targeted adjustments will be made. For example, before 2008, Violent Dan gradually transformed into Taiji Dan, which is a successful case of switching from more assault to pull, lob and control as age increases and ability decreases.

    Carefully analyzing the four words of pull, lob and assault, we will find that pull, lob and assault require relatively high running ability and hand control, while assault will relatively emphasize physical explosiveness and various downward offensive techniques such as heavy kill, chop kill, chop and lob. Just from the perspective of physical ability, it means that there are high requirements for people’s speed and strength. Professional athletes will not have problems in these two aspects, but for amateurs, this may be a matter of having your cake and eating it too – those who run fast are generally small and slender; those with better strength are basically big and strong.

    In my opinion, there is no need to talk about tactics before amateur level 3. Enthusiasts at levels 3-6 who have mastered the basic techniques comprehensively may need to consider the singles tactics that suit them. Although professional athletes generally use the pull-and-lob attack, this style of play really requires high technical and physical abilities and may not be suitable for most amateur players.

    2 What are the requirements for pull-and-lob vs. attack?

    In my opinion, the dichotomy of speed and strength is a good starting point for amateurs to consider tactics – thin players should play to their advantage of speed, and strong players should fully demonstrate their advantage of strength.

    Pull-and-lob – the choice of speed-type players, the core is ” fast + stable “. Fast is mainly about running fast on the court, which is what the saying “running in place” means, which allows you to be in a body posture that is relatively smooth in exerting force. With the premise of being in place, it is easier for us to hit the ball “steadily” – it is not easy to make mistakes when hitting the ball, and the hit point is more accurate. The two factors of speed and stability complement each other, which is the best combination tactic for speed players: through active running on the court and stable square balls in hand, try to use multiple shots to pull the opponent, forcing the opponent to make mistakes or return low-quality balls when the pace is not in place.

    Assault – the choice of power players, the core is ” ruthless + change “. As a player with a strong body, there will be a natural disadvantage in speed, and the stability of the ball will also decrease when the footsteps are not in place. If you still blindly fight with the opponent to pull and lob at this time, it is to attack the opponent’s strength with your own weakness. What we should do is to increase the downward pressure, use relatively simple overhand balls to suppress the opponent, and increase the difficulty of the opponent’s ball. At the same time, it is relatively easy to make changes in the overhand ball. The application of various techniques such as heavy smash, smash, and lob can greatly increase our scoring possibilities. If we can implement the “ruthless + change” tactics, more often take the ball and press down, the opponent will lose if he defends for a long time. We can not only play our own characteristics, but also easily win the final victory.

    3 Pull and lob and assault, how should amateurs choose?

    For amateurs, do not blindly imitate professional athletes in the choice of singles tactics. We do not have such comprehensive skills and good physical fitness. We should choose to lob or assault according to our own physical conditions. Slender speed players choose lob, and score mainly by running to the right position and relatively accurate four-way balls to mobilize opponents on a large scale; strong power players choose assault, and use rich and varied downward pressure techniques to continuously put pressure on opponents.

    Of course, if we reach the level of amateur strong 6 or even 7, we may need to combine lob and assault, and adopt more professional skills and tactics to achieve a higher winning rate in singles. This requires us to ensure comprehensive and superb skills through special multi-ball training, and continuous physical training to ensure the improvement of our own speed and strength.