Original title: Badminton masters gather in Suzhou Sudirman Cup is about to start
Guangming DailyReporter Wang Dong
On May 14th, the World Badminton Mixed Team Championships (Sudirman Cup) (hereinafter referred to as “Su Cup”) will come to China for the sixth time, and the 18th event will be held in the Suzhou Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium.
As the start date approaches, 16 participating teams have arrived in Suzhou one after another to make final preparations before the competition. The Suzhou Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium, which can accommodate tens of thousands of people, has also taken on a new look.
In order to successfully host this competition, the organizers and hosts have put in a lot of effort: in order to create a good atmosphere for the competition, the overall atmosphere of the Suzhou Olympic Sports Center and its surroundings is dominated by Kunqiang purple and Taihu blue, and the media center is composed of Dangui yellow. With camphor green as the main color. Around it, dozens of outdoor electronic display screens have been erected to continuously play promotional images, and road flags with the event emblem and promotional slogans are also hung on the main roads. And so on also put a lot of public service advertisements.
“Feather more love, walk with dreams”, the theme slogan of this year’s Su Cup can be seen everywhere, and the two mascot images of the competition, “Gu Gu” and “Su Su” based on waterfowl, also appeared around the venue.
May 11th is the day for the participating teams to report. On that day, the Japanese team, the Danish team, the Chinese Taipei team, the French team, the England team, and the Canadian team began to train after they arrived. The rest of the teams all arrived on May 12. The host Chinese team arranged two training sessions a day. Among the Guoyu lineup, 8 people are “post-00s”. Among them, the women’s doubles “post-00s” combination Liu Shengshu/Tan Ning was selected for the Su Cup for the first time. In the afternoon, they had confrontation training with Zheng Yu/Zhang Shuxian, another women’s doubles pair.
The reporter learned that in every world competition, the Chinese team has members of the expert team to guide and prepare for the match. This time, Olympic champions Cai Yun and Chen Long appeared in the team. Cai Yun, the men’s doubles champion at the London Olympics, is from Suzhou. He is very happy that his hometown can host the Suzhou Cup. On the same day, he guided the national feather women’s doubles preparations and helped Chen Qingchen train. Rio Olympic men’s singles champion Chen Long also appeared on the training ground to help Li Shifeng and other young national men’s singles players prepare for the competition.
The Suzhou Cup is the highest level mixed team badminton event in the world, and it is also an event to test the comprehensive strength of badminton in a country (region). The most important event of the first half of the year.
In the 17 Soviet Cups held in the past, the Chinese team reached the top 12 times, of which 5 times were completed at home.
A total of 16 teams participated in this year’s Soviet Union Cup. The Chinese team is in Group A with the Danish team, the Singaporean team and the Egyptian team. According to the schedule, the first game of the Chinese team will start on the evening of May 14th against the Egyptian team; the second game of the Chinese team will come at 5 pm on May 16th against the Singaporean team; the final match of the Chinese team The time is at 5 pm on May 18th, and the opponent is the Danish team. The next three days are quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals. The final champion will be produced on May 21.
Judging from the group stage, the Danish team is the strongest opponent of the Chinese team. They are led by the Olympic champion Axelsen. In the men’s singles, Guoyu has no advantage no matter who they send. In addition, in the men’s doubles and women’s singles, the Danish team can also give the Chinese team a certain impact, but according to the overall strength of the five individual events, Guoyu still has the upper hand.
As the last champion and host, facing many powerful enemies, the Chinese badminton team is fully prepared and will work hard to defend the title.