May 19 2008
The badminton competition will be very fierce, and anything can happen, as recent results will attest. The Chinese will be leveraging their home court advantage, yet they are facing experienced prior medalists who know how to train and peak for the Olympics.
If, as expected, the US earns no badminton medals in the 2008 Olympics, it will still have earned a great psychic victory in Beijing - for the first time ever, there are US entrants competing in all five of the badminton events!
Nationalist fervor aside, here are medal predictions for all badminton events at the 2008 Beijing Olympics:
- Mens singles badminton
GOLD: Dan Lin - China
SILVER: Chong Wei Lee - Malaysia
BRONZE: Chunlai Bao - China
- Womens singles badminton
GOLD: Xingfang Xie - China
SILVER: Ning Zhang - China
BRONZE: Lan Lu - China
- Mens doubles badminton
GOLD: Haifeng Fu & Yun Cai - China
SILVER: Markis Kido & Handra Setiawan - Indonesia
BRONZE: Jae Sung Jung & Yong Dae Lee - Korea
- Womens doubles badminton
GOLD: Wei Yang & Jiewen Zhang - China
SILVER: Yawen Zhang & Yili Wei - China
BRONZE: Jing Du & Yang Yu - China
- Mixed doubles badminton
GOLD: Nova Widianto & Liliyana Natsir - Indonesia
SILVER: Bo Zheng & Ling Gao - China
BRONZE: Flandy Limpele & Vita Marissa - Indonesia