The making of a true champion

Saturday November 29, 2008
The making of a true champion
Shanghai BundBy CHOW HOW BAN
China’s badminton ace Lin Dan is confident of remaining on top for some time to come.
WHEN Lin Dan crushed Lee Chong Wei’s dream of winning Malaysia’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in the Beijing Games badminton final last August, he raised his right hand and saluted the crowd in his victory celebration at the end of the game.
His expressive celebration caught my eye and led me to find out more about this Olympic champion.
In fact, Lin’s salute gesture should not be viewed as exaggeration as the Chinese shuttler did that simply out of his profound pride as a soldier.
“I remember that he started having this celebratory gesture at the ninth National Games,” Gao Lujiang, Lin’s mentor in the Liberation Army team, told a daily.
“It comes straight from his heart and he wants to tell people that he is a soldier. The gesture makes everyone in the Liberation Army team proud of him.”
Lin who was born in Longyan, Fujian province, to a car driver and pharmaceutical company worker, picked up badminton at the age of five. He joined the provincial sports academy in 1991 before dropping out four years later because of his small build. He was then recruited by the Liberation Army and travelled 500 km from home to the boarding school in Fuzhou where he received army and badminton training.
Lin was a unique child whose only passion was badminton. He cried when he lost his matches and his strong character and eagerness to outshine others has been there since childhood. “In 1998 at the age of 15, I was rather childish,” Lin wrote in his blog.
“I remember clearly that after our team won a tournament in Chengdu, I went out with a few players from the Sichuan team. Wu Yong who lost in the match challenged me to eat chillies.
“After downing red hot chillies, I was sent to the hospital with serious stomach complications. Throughout the past 10 years, I have become more mature and calm. The Olympic Games is over and now marks a new beginning for me,” he said.
With the hope of the entire nation on him to increase its medal tally, Lin overcame the mental challenge by winning the competition without giving away a single set. Prior to his final against Chong Wei, he couldn’t even eat or sleep well as he kept thinking of the match.
“I had watched some games in Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 to analyse why the favourites succumbed to pressure and lost when it mattered most. I told my coach that I must make myself anxious during training. I managed to prepare myself mentally for the reality,” he said in an interview on qq.com. It was a huge relief for the 25-year-old when he clinched the winning point.
To Lin, the gold-medal match wasn’t about strategy or ranking. It was purely a test of who could withstand pressure until the last point.
Lin has won almost all major competitions such as the World Champion­ships, Thomas Cup, Sudirman Cup, All-England and now the Olympics gold. He wants to play for another four years and continue to give his best to his fans.
“A lot of people say that I have reached the peak of my career after winning the Olympic Games. Since Athens 2004, I have been maintaining a consistent level of performances. If I can consolidate my performance this year and the next, that will be wonderful,” he said during the China Open in Shanghai last week.
He is aware of the criticism that may come should he flop after his Olympics success, but the man of steel assures his fans that he will soldier on to greater heights. His goal is to win the Asian Games gold medal and surpass Indonesian Taufik Hidayat’s achievements (Taufik remains the only men’s player in recent times to have won the World Championships, Thomas Cup, Olympics and Asian Games).
Here’s another story that yet again shows his strong character.
Before the Athens Games in 2004, the Chinese national team made a special trip to pray at the Mao Zedong memorial square in Shaoshan as they believed that the legendary Chinese leader would bless the team. But, Lin and his girlfriend and women’s singles star Xie Xingfang opted to stay on the bus playing poker. He lost in the first round match.
During their visit there again a month before the Beijing Games, he was among the first players to run up to the square to seek Mao’s blessing.
“After that, I managed to go for training every day with a peace of mind and work steadily to achieve my goal in the Olympics,” he said.