Badminton Player Bio Lee Chong Wei

Badminton Lee Chong Wei holds the current #2 ranking in men's badminton, by the Badminton World Federation (BWF, 2016). Lee is expected to compete at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil representing Malaysia. As the top player from his country only injury would keep him out. Lee is one of the veterans on the world badminton circuit, at the age of 33. He was born in Bagan Serai, in the state of Perak.

This city is located on the northwest region of the country, in an area that has produced a large number of Malaysia's top badminton players. Lee grew up in this city, but as a badminton player initially. His father was a badminton player, and pushed him into the sport, where he quickly excelled at the local level. This was at age 11, and he had only taken up the sport on his father's insistence (Lee, 2008).

By the age of 17, Lee was winning tournaments regularly, at progressively higher levels, and caught the attention of those in the Malaysian national program. Malaysia has regularly produced top badminton players, so they have a good eye for talent and the skill to develop it. After winning several tournaments, Lee was drafted to the national team to continue his training and develop his game for major world tournaments (Lee, 2008). At this point he moved to Penang, a larger city in the area and a badminton hotbed.

At the time, he was one of several promising players in the system, many from the northwest, and it was through attrition that he was able to excel where other talented players failed to achieve the same heights. Like with most top athletes, Lee is intensely competitive, and he has expressed how much he hates losing, no matter what the game. This hatred of losing is one of the main motivators that Lee uses to train, knowing that any slack in training will result in negative results.

Lee has attributed some of his success specifically to the mental aspect of the game, and sees this as an important area on which to work (Lee, 2008). He competed in his first Olympic Games in 2008 in Beijing, winning silver after losing in the final to Chinese Lin Dan, one of his main rivals on the world stage. Through this period, he was either gold or silver in every tournament, allowing him to move into the world #1 rankings as of August 2008, a position that he held for over a year.

He continued his run of excellent form for the next four years, but again lost out in the final of the London Olympics, and again to Lin Dan. During this period he won four times the BWF Player of the Year Award, in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013, and has won numerous other awards and titles over his career. In 2015, however, Lee was found guilty of doping and was handed an 8-month ban. At the prior World Championships, he had tested positive for dexamethasone, which is an anti-inflammatory drug.

The disciplinary panel found that the doping had been negligent, so the ban was backdated and he was able to resume his career shortly after the ban, but he was stripped of the silver medal that he won at those World Championships (BBC, 2015). The timing of the reinstatement was critical for Lee, because it was just in time for the qualifying period for Rio. He had.