Men's Singles World No. 1 Lin Dan of China thrashed Malaysia's World No. 2 Lee Chong-wei 21-12, 21-8 to win the gold in the Beijing Olympic Badminton tournament on Sunday, August 17.
The anticipated heart-pounding dream final turned out to be a frustrating exit for Lee, who was bidding for Malaysia's first Olympic gold.
"I suffered a lot of pressure tonight but I do not want to use it as an excuse for my defeat," he said.
Maybe it was the pressure that made a normally sharp Lee lose his edge on court and essentially provide no match for Super Dan's quickly-adapted strategies and crosscourt smashes.
In the first game Lin raced into a 7-1 lead. Eager to close the gap, Lee made too many unforced errors, enabling the World No. 1 to stretch his winning margin to 16-8 before closing out the game 21-12.
Lin continued to attack Lee in the second game, opening up an 8-0 lead and forcing his opponent to chase shuttles to all four corners of the court before killing rallies off with his smash. As the game progressed, Lee simply had no answers to Lin's speed and the Chinese left-hander closed out the match in just 41 minutes.
"I have tried my best but Lin Dan played perfectly tonight," said Malaysian sport icon Lee. "I couldn't match his shuttle speed. He was much stronger than me and controlled the whole match."
"At the end of the match it is not who is playing at a higher level, it is all about who is mentally stronger," Lee commented on his loss.
"I felt a lot of pressure playing in front of my home crowd," said an exhilarated Lin. "I thought it would be difficult to play the match and the pressure of the crowd might even be to my disadvantage, but I played well.
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