Lin Dan’s golden shoes the most exciting thing about China’s ‘boring’ Olympic badminton team – but blame pressure, not players
Squad are under pressure to win five gold medals, so have no time to become personalities like some of the mainland’s other Olympians
China’s Rio contingent has produced a number of star personalities, including “funny swimmer” Fu Yuanhui, the controversial Sun Yang and boxer Lu Bin.
The country’s badminton players, though, are under too much pressure to seek the limelight as they try to repeat their London feat of sweeping all five gold medals.
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Men’s singles athlete Lin Dan is the only player who has star quality with his off-court activities such as modelling, but even he is trying to keep a low profile – his only quirk being his golden shoes that he hopes brings “luck and happiness”.
“The badminton players are simply under too much pressure to perform, they can’t afford to have fun like some of the other Chinese athletes at the Olympics,” said one mainland journalist.