A player from nowhere won the gold medal. That is the magic of the Olympics. Ji Xinpeng was the one who caused the biggest upset in this Sydney Games.

The first victim was the top seed, Taufik Hidayat, and then the world number one, Peter Gade of Denmark, and now the second seed was his last and biggest prey as he then deserved the gold medal.

The result highlighted the dominance of China in badminton with four gold medals, with only one left for Indonesia. With finishing the men’s singles final, China got four gold medals, one silver, and three bronze medals. Indonesia got one gold medal, two silver medal, Korea got one silver and one bronze, and Denmark got one silver, and Great Britain one bronze. Compared with the 1996 results, the number of countries winning medals is the same, with Malaysia replaced by Great Britain.

Speaking about his protйgй, Ji Xinpeng, his coach Tang Xien Hu gave his compliments. “He is diligent and likes to obey what I say. He won because he could anticipate Hendrawan’s game and also didn’t give him space to move. That was the strategy. We’ve analysed Hendrawan’s game in his previous matches,” he said.

China took a clean sweep of medals in the women’s doubles event. The evening match was just the judgement to decide which is the strongest between the two Chinese pairs, Ge Fei and Gu Jun and Huang Nanyan and Yang Wei. Ge and Gu ensured their dominance by beating their youngters, 15-5, 15-5.

“It’s hard to stay and defend the gold. We worked hard with our coaches, with the support of the officials and the government,” Gu Jun said. This is the second time they got the gold medal in the Olympics. It just reaffirmed what it said invincible pairs since 1996. The players said it is still uncertain whether they will stay playing badminton in the next few years. In the bronze medal match in the men’s singles, Peter Gade started with high speed and tried toup the court to attack Xia Xuanze. It worked until the position of 6-3 for Gade. But then Xia was back into the game, and chased until 8-9, but then again Gade took running points until 13-8. It seemed then that Xia got second wind to finish the first game by 15-13.

In the second game, Gade didn’t do his job properly. He couldn’t move smoothly and it cost him a lot as the score ended 15-5. “I was satisfied in the first game at the beginning. I dragged him around the corner. But then I lost the pace, and starting emotional. It was very disappointing when I couldn’t do my normal shots. But life goes on and I couldn’t be very sad. But I’d like to say I’m sorry because I couldn’t produce any medals,” Gade said.

Xia realised, “He didn’t play at his best. For me, losing yesterday’s match was something I had to forget because I had to continue to try my best today.”

In the bronze medal match between Korean women’s doubles, Ra Kyung-min and Chung Jae-hee and Qin Yiyuan and Gao Ling was a one-sided match when Ra and Chung made so many easy mistakes. The second set went quickly, 15-4, and the match ended 15-10, 15-4.