Olympic badminton results: Americans struggle – August 12
By John Buhler
The second day of the preliminary stage of 2016 Olympic badminton is in the books. Find out how the United States and other performers fared on August 12th.
Friday, August 12th brought another day chock full of Olympic badminton competition across all five of the sport’s events. This was Day 2 of the badminton preliminary trials in the Men’s Singles, the Women’s Singles, the Mixed Doubles, the Men’s Doubles, and the Women’s Doubles.
After getting shut out during the first day of preliminary competition, at least one United States badminton player had herself a good day. American Iris Wang defeated Portugal’s Telma Santos 2-1 in their best-of-three set in the Women’s Singles.
Wang lost the first set to Santos 21-18 but managed to come from behind to win the final two sets in the prelims 21-10 and 21-12. Through the first two days of the Olympic badminton preliminary competitions, Wang has been the only American to have come away with a victory.
On the men’s side, American Howard Shu lost to Indonesia’s Tommy Sugiarto 2-0 in the Men’s Singles. Shu was the United States’ best hope in the Men’s Singles, but he fell to Sugiarto 21-14 and 21-10 in back-to-back sets.
Americans Phillip Chew and Sattawat Pongnairat fell to Malaysia’s V. Shem Goh and Wee Kiong Tan in the Men’s Doubles, 2-0. Chew and Jamie Subandhi would lose to Japan’s Kenta Kazuno and Ayane Kurihara in the Mixed Doubles, 2-0.
The United States would also fall 2-0 in the Women’s Doubles, as Eva Lee and Paula Lynn Obanana were no match for Denmark’s Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl. Outside of Wang’s come-from-behind victory in the Women’s Singles versus Portugal’s Santos, this was another bad day on the badminton court at Riocentro.
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Outside of American struggles, the other notable match from Friday’s preliminaries at Riocentro was in the Men’s Singles. China’s Dan Lin knocked off Russia’s Vladimir Malkov 2-0, winning a close first set 21-18 and clobbering Malkov in the second set 21-7. Lin is considered the favorite to win Olympic gold in the Men’s Singles.
Saturday is largely the last day of the preliminary part of the Olympic badminton events. Will Wang be the only American vying for a trip to the quarterfinals or will she have a few other countrymen joining her into the second week of competition?