You might know India as a force to reckon with in badminton now, but it wasn’t always the case. We’ve had top players before, but we had to wait until 2012 to get our first medal in the competition at the Olympics. The credit for that goes to Saina Nehwal.
Ranked fifth back then, Saina qualified for the 2012 London Olympics and sailed through to the knock-out stages with straight games victories over Switzerland’s Sabrina Jaquet and Belgium’s Lianne Tan.
Wins against Chinese-born Dutch Yao Jie and Denmark’s Tine Baun put Saina within a victory of the summit clash. Saina, however, lost her semi-finals against top seed Wing Yihan of China, who finished with a silver medal
In the bronze medal play-off against China’s Wang Xin, Saina Nehwal was trailing after she lost the opening game 18-21. Luck, however, was on her side as Wang Xin was forced to retire after twisting her knee while going for an acrobatic smash in the second game. Saina thus finished with a bronze medal.
DID YOU KNOW?
Even though India had top quality players to boast about earlier as well, Saina Nehwal’s bronze was the country’s first badminton medal at the Olympics.
India has won two medals in badminton at the Olympics so far, one bronze and one silver. Both these medals were won by women.
After Saina’s bronze in 2012, PV Sindhu went one better at the 2016 Rio Olympics, finishing with a silver medal.
Picture Credit : Google
