The hope for Indonesia to win gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be determined this Monday (2/8/2021) in the women’s doubles badminton final. The country’s tradition of winning gold is expected to continue.
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KOMPAS EDITOR
·3 minutes read
AP PHOTO/MARKUS SCHREIBER
Indonesian badminton players Greysia Polii (right) and Apriyani Rahayu celebrate their victory over South Korean pair Lee So-hee and Shin Seung-chan in the women\'s doubles semifinal of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Saturday (31/7/2021), in Tokyo, Japan. Greysia/Apriyani won with a score of 21-19, 21-17.
Looking back, Indonesia’s gold medal has consistently been dominated by badminton since the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when Susy Susanti won gold in the women’s singles and Alan Budikusuma won gold in the men’s singles.
After that, the men’s doubles gold in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was won by Ricky Subagdja and Rexy Mainaky, followed by Candra Wijaya and Tony Gunawan in Sydney, Australia, in 2000. Taufik Hidayat continued the tradition in men’s singles in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
At the 2008 Beijing Games, the men’s doubles contributed to Indonesia’s gold collection through the struggle of Hendra Setiawan and the late Markis Kido. The sport did not bring Indonesia gold in the 2012 London Games. The country, however, won one silver and one bronze in weightlifting, which has also regularly contributed medals since the 2000 Sydney Games.
The gold tradition continued in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, when Indonesia’s mixed doubles Tontowi Ahmad abd Liliyana Natsir defeated Malaysia’s Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying. This was also Indonesia’s first gold from the mixed doubles category.
The only Indonesian representatives who still have the chance to win gold is none other than women’s doubles pair Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu. In the final, the unseeded Greysia and Apriyani will play the number two seeds Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan from China. There is also a chance for a bronze medal in the men\'s singles, through Anthony Sinisuka Ginting.
AFP/ALEXANDER NEMENOV
Anthony Sinisuka Ginting
We all hope that Greysia and Apriyani will perform their best and bring home the gold medal that Indonesians deeply long for. If all efforts have been exhausted and gold is still not obtained, the public must still appreciate their hard work.
Considering that this is also the first time Indonesia’s women’s doubles team has reached the Olympic final, winning silver will also be a new historic moment. We believe that Greysia and Apriyani are determined to offer their best.
Going forward, a thorough evaluation is needed. In the men’s doubles category, where we have two top seeds, Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo and Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan, gold was acquired by Taiwanese duo Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin. In mixed doubles, the gold was won by China’s Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping.
In the men’s singles competition, the winner will be determined in a match between Viktor Axelsen (Denmark) and Chen Long (China). As for the women\'s singles, the top match brought together Chen Yufei (China) and Tai Tzu-ying (Taiwan). Competition in badminton is getting tougher with the presence of world-class players from countries without a badminton tradition, such as Carolina Marin (Spain) and Kevin Cordon from Guatemala, who were surprised to reach the semifinals of the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Apart from badminton, the country’s sports management also generally needs to polish other medal-contributing sports in addition to badminton: weightlifting and archery. Winning a medal at the Olympics is the face of Indonesian sports.
