Sri Lanka’s national badminton champion Niluka Karunaratne has qualified for the 2012 London Olympics. The Sunday Times asked Professor Ranjit de Silva, Council Member of the Badminton World Federation which conducts the Olympic badminton event what Niluka’s chances of success were and he had this to say:
In the 2012 London Olympics the format of the badminton competition will be different from that of previous Olympics. The knock-out competition will be preceded by a group stage to give more exposure to the weaker players.
40 players have qualified for the London Olympics in the men’s singles event. The top 16 of these players will be seeded and drawn into 16 groups. The next 16 players will then be drawn into each of these 16 groups. Niluka has qualified at No.30 and will be in this second draw. Because only the winner of each group will go through to the knock-out stage, this draw is critical for Niluka. The draw will take place in London at 10.30 am on 23 July 2012. If he is lucky to be drawn into a group containing a player from the bottom of the seeded list he has a greater chance of overcoming his first big barrier.
The remaining 8 players will be drawn into 8 of the 16 groups. If one of them is drawn into Niluka’s group he will have an extra match which he is expected to win because these players have qualified at a lower level than him. However, winning this match will not really help other than to give Niluka some familiarity with the court conditions if the match is played before he meets the seeded player in his group.
The 16 winners of the groups will play the knock-out stage for the medals with a play-off between the losing semi-finalists for the bronze medal.
Advancing from the group stage to the knock-out stage is like moving from the top of Adam’s Peak to the bottom of the Himalayas with a request to climb to the summit. The latter can be done and has been done but it requires exceptional ability, grit and determination. |
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