Badminton... Again...

I happened to walk past Hall 4's TV room one day and I saw something very interesting... There was a badminton match going on, men's doubles semi-finals to be more exact, and it was between an Indonesian pair and a US pair. I was soooo shocked lah... but then I saw that one of the US players was actually Indonesian lah... Tony Gunawan... haven't heard about him for some time. Apparently he's studying in US or something.

Anyway, I watch what remained of the match lah... and the US team won. It's surprising because US never got so far in a badminton competition before. I mean, who has heard of strong badminton players from US?

And if you were as shocked as me to see US get into the finals, imagine how I felt when they actually won! Siao! Won against Indon pair woh...Candra Wijaya and Sigit Budiarto. It was a 3 match game... 15-11, 10-15, 15-11. I just read the news not long ago. The other US player is Howard Bach...don't be fooled by his name, he's not caucasian; he was born in Vietnam, but lived most of his life in US.

Another interesting thing about this time's Badminton World Championships is that it was held in US. I bet most Americans have no idea what is badminton. But anyway, the International Badminton Federation (IBF) wanted the competition to be held in the US to "market" the sport. Good move I hope. I certainly would enjoy seeing more competitors from more countries competing in this sport. Hopefully they will stop the mainly China-Indon domination... haha... especially the women's games, almost no fail China win one...

<===And I suppose it was kinda inevitable that sport events in the US have their own distinctive US "touch" to it. Like these cheerleaders performing on the badminton court.




In case you didn't know, the IBF actually WANTS their female players to wear more "glamorous outfits" (= skimpier dressing?), as they think the traditional style is too old-fahioned. In fact, IBF's vice president, Datuk Punch Gunalan said "...We need to be in the fashion world. So we would like to see players wear more appealing clothes to the public......Let’s take Maria Sharapova. Look at her tank tops. It is pretty.”

What do you think? :)

I'm all for it! =P