Rio De Janeiro, Nov 23 (IANS) China’s five-time world champion and dual Olympic gold medalist Lin Dan is heading for Rio de Janeiro to participate in the 2016 Olympics badminton test event to be held between November 24 and 29.
The 32-year-old hurt his leg on the first match day of the Hong Kong Open last week and was eventually stunned by young Hong Kong shuttler Ng Ka-long in the second round, Xinhua news agency reported.
However, Lin, considered one of badminton’s greatest ever players, still decided to fly near 30 hours directly from Hong Kong to Rio for the lower-leveled Olympic test event, showing his ambition and careful preparation en route to the Rio Olympics.
Currently ranked 3rd on world rankings, Lin is the only famous shuttler at the Olympic test event, also named as Brazil Grand Prix, while others are mainly youngsters and lowly-ranked shuttlers.
The Olympic test event will be held at Riocentro Pavillion 4, where is exact the same venue for Olympic badminton event. Chinese team pay much attention to the test event as its head coach Li Yongbo also comes here along with four coaches.
Lin will be aiming for a hat-trick of Olympic gold medals next year having triumphed in Beijing in 2008 and London four years later.