Badminton mixed doubles silver best result in 16 years
World’s 8th ranked ‘Kim Won-ho-Jeong Na-eun’ team. Lost 0-2 to world’s 1st ranked Chinese team. It seems to be the aftereffect of running hard enough to vomit in the semifinals. Kim’s mother is ‘Atlanta Kim’ Gil Young-ah.
Korean national badminton team members Jung Na-eun (left) and Kim Won-ho are competing in the mixed doubles final at the Paris Olympics on the 2nd. The two players lost to Chinese team members Zheng Siwei and Huang Yachong in the match held at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena in Paris, France, and won silver medals.
No one considered them as medal candidates. They only had 1 win and 2 losses in the group stage. However, the final result was their best performance in 16 years. The Korean badminton mixed doubles team of Kim Won-ho (25) and Jeong Na-eun (24) finished the Paris Olympics in second place.
In the final held at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena in Paris on the 2nd, the Kim Won-ho-Jeong Na-eun team lost 0-2 (8-21, 11-21) to the No. 1 Zheng Si-wei (27) and Huang Ya-chong (30, China) team in 41 minutes, taking the silver medal. The No. 1 Zheng Si-wei-Huang Ya-chong team in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) was the same team that defeated the Kim Won-ho-Jeong Na-eun team (8th) 0-2 in the group stage.
Since winning one gold, one silver, and one bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Games, Korean badminton has not made it to the Olympic finals. From the 2012 London Olympics to the Tokyo Games three years ago, they have only returned with one bronze medal. By advancing to the finals at this tournament, the Kim Won-ho-Jung Na-eun pair has already achieved their best result in 16 years.
The Kim Won-ho-Jung Na-eun pair defeated the BWF ranked 2nd Seo Seung-jae (27)-Chae Yu-jeong (29) pair, who were considered as gold medal candidates in this tournament, in the semifinals that were held as a ‘family fight’ and advanced to the finals. The Kim Won-ho-Jung Na-eun pair fought a fierce battle for 77 minutes to defeat the ‘Korean national team 1st group’, who had lost all 5 matches in the head-to-head match. Kim Won-ho literally ‘pooed’ by vomiting into a plastic bag during the 3rd set of the semifinals.
At the media day event for the national badminton team held ahead of this Olympics, Kim Won-ho was asked only one question. ‘Did your mother say anything special to you before you competed in the Olympics?’ Kim Won-ho’s mother is Gil Young-ah (54), the coach of Samsung Life Insurance, who won the Olympic mixed doubles gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Kim Won-ho said at the time, “My mother said, ‘Olympic medals are given by heaven. He replied, “If you do your best, you never know what the results will be.” With the heavens showering them with medals, Coach Gil and Kim Won-ho became Korea’s first mother-son Olympic medalists.
Kim Won-ho said, “I dreamed of winning an Olympic medal ever since I was little, watching my mother win a gold medal. I always imagined winning an Olympic medal, but I never thought it would really come true,” and smiled, saying, “Now, instead of being called ‘Gil Young-ah’s son,’ I think I’ll be able to let my mother live as ‘Kim Won-ho’s mother. ’”
The Seo Seung-jae-Chae Yu-jeong pair lost 0-2 (13-21, 20-22) to the Japanese pair of Watanabe Yuta (27) and Higashino Arisa (28), ranked 5th in the BWF rankings, in the bronze medal match held before the final, finishing the tournament in 4th place. Seo Seung-jae, who competed in both the men’s doubles and mixed doubles, ended up finishing the tournament with ‘no medal. ’ Seo Seung-jae was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the men’s doubles with Kang Min-hyeok (25). 바카라사이트
