Tokyo champ Chen Yufei’s National Games shoe injury sees fans call out Li-Ning
- Tokyo 2020 badminton gold medal winner changes shoes mid-game after injury with fans calling on Li-Ning to respond
- Manufacturers, who express ‘extreme concern’ on social media saying they reached out to star, fell foul of CBA players in past
Chen, who was competing for Zhejiang province in Xian, beat Han Yue of Fujian 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 21-14) on Thursday but the match was disrupted by the Olympic gold medal winner seeking a medical stoppage for a foot injury and then changing her footwear.
Han won the first game 21-16 before Chen called a medical timeout at 10-8 in the second game. A doctor applied a bandage on her right foot before she won the game 21-19. In the third game Chen had changed her shoes.
The World Badminton Federation (BWF) posted images on China’s Twitter-like Weibo of a bloodied sock and a cut to the big toe of the right foot, along with a quote from Chen when she spoke to media after the match.
“In the first game … something like steel wire or thread cut my foot apart. That thing kept scratching my toes, so I changed to the previous pair of shoes, which is somewhat better than the previous one.”
