CHINA NATIONAL GAMES Final – Jiangsu Men’s Team Captures 4th Straight Gold

Source :  http://www.badzine.info

It was double joy last night at the Qingdao Guoxin Gymnasium for the Jiangsu Province team. Their men’s team, as defending champions, had an easy 3-0 win against Fujian in the final, capturing the gold medal for the fourth consecutive time in the Games, this victory coming just a few hours after the province’s gold medal performance in the ladies’ event.

By Timothy Chan, Badzine Correspondent. Photos: China Foto Press (live)

A strong team with senior national players like Chen Jin, Cai Yun and Xu Chen, Jiangsu’s men’s team looked too powerful for Fujian, whose previous best result was clinching the gold medal at the seventh Games in 1993. And what was a fact on paper, became an evidence on the courts.

Taking Jiangsu to a flying start with a 1-0 lead, was world no. 4 Chen Jin (pictured below). He demolished Fujian’s Chen Long, the world #17 and Philippine Open champion, in two straight games at 21-17, 25-23.

ChinaGamesfinals-ChenJinThe first game was quite a close encounter as both players were level at 16-all before Chen Jin took the game at 21-17. But the second game was even closer than the first, seesawing between 8-8 and 11-11 until 17-17. Chen Jin then pulled ahead to earn a couple of match points at 20-18 but Chen Long persevered to to level it at 20-all to bring the game to a deuce. After 64 minutes of thrills, Chen Jin finished off Chen Long at 25-23.

“Jiangsu’s goal is to defend the title. I was under great pressure to play the first match. I was prepared for three games since Chen Long is young and talented. He dominated well at the net during the match,” Chen Jin told Xinhua afterward.

“I felt very nervous today and was not in my best form. I was a little bit conservative so the victory was a hard one.” Chen Jin added. Chen Long, on the other hand, said that he was too anxious to get the points, which resulted in some errors.

In the first doubles, Tao Jiaming and Sun Junjie enabled Jiangsu to stretch to a 2-0 lead when they upset the older and more experienced Guo Zhendong and Liu Xiaolong in two straight games at 21-8, 21-17.

“Before the match, our teammate Cai Yun helped us to analyse our opponents and this analysis assisted us to be more familiar with their style. ” Tao told the local press. Cai Yun, is a two-time men’s doubles world champion in 2006 and 2009. Interestingly, Sun Junjie is the son of Jiangsu’s head coach, Sun Zhian.

ChinaGamesfinals-podiumThe Jiangsu team need not wait any further when their 2nd singles Qiu Yanbo, world no. 122, sprang up a surprising win against the higher ranked Gong Weijie (WR#43), winning the match at 21-16, 15-21, 21-16 to wrap up the tie at 3-0 for Jiangsu to clinch the gold medal.

After the match, Fujian’s coach Hu Zhilan accepted the defeat saying that his players had done their best and that they were hindered from playing very well because their opponents were too strong.

The bronze medal went to Guangdong. They beat Liaoning 3-1 earlier on Monday.

With two badminton golds, the entire Jiangsu team is now leading the National Games overall table with 26 gold, 11 silver and 15 bronze. Their women’s team had earlier in the morning beaten Guangdong to win the gold medal for the first time in 16 years.

There are five more gold medals up for grabs as the players will want to do their provinces proud as they begin their golden pursuits from 14 to 18 October in the individual events of men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.

The final men’s team standings are :

1st: Jiangsu

2nd: Fujian

3rd: Guangdong

4th Liaoning

5th: People’s Liberation Army

6th: Hongkong

7th: Hunan

8th: Shanghai

9th: Beijing

10th:

Hubei

11th: Shandong

12th: Guangxi