Shuttler Lee Cheuk-yiu’s Olympic dream hit by loss of Indian Open to Covid-19 pandemic but coach Tim He is confident of Tokyo ticket
- The 24-year-old was meant to be Hong Kong’s only player at the New Delhi event but the country’s latest explosion of Covid-19 cases has forced organisers to cancel the tournament
- Lee, the world number 18, has to make up two places in two remaining qualifying tournaments to join Hong Kong number one Angus Ng at the Tokyo Olympics
Shuttler Lee Cheuk-yiu’s Olympic qualification hopes suffered a setback after the Indian Open was cancelled but his coach Tim He Yiming was confident he could become the second Hong Kong men’s singles player to secure a Tokyo Games spot.
The 24-year-old Lee, 18th in the qualification rankings, needs to rise two places in the standings to make his Olympic debut this summer and he was hoping to use the New Delhi tournament, scheduled to start on May 11, the Malaysian Open two weeks later and June’s Singapore Open to collect enough points to qualify.
India is now out of the equation with head coach He originally planning to send only Lee to the Super 500 tournament – the same level as the Hong Kong Open – for precious ranking points while keeping top guns Angus Ng Ka-long, Tang Chun-man and Tse Ying-suet in Hong Kong because of Covid-19 pandemic concerns.
With India suffering an explosion in new coronavirus infections over the past few weeks, governing body Badminton World Federation was forced to cancel the tournament without replacing it before the Olympic qualifying deadline. The BBC reported on Thursday that India recorded 314,000 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, the highest one-day tally recorded anywhere in the world.
“We have to face reality,” said He. “Lee will now have one fewer tournament to make the grade and can only focus on his last two tournaments because there will no replacement for the India Open.
“But he has been improving rapidly since lifting the Hong Kong Open title in 2019 and proved himself in the Thailand Open. If he can keep his standard in the last two tournaments, he certainly has a great chance of making it.”
At back-to-back US$1 million Thailand Opens in January, Hong Kong players put in some exceptional performances through Ng and Lee. Ng made it to the final of the first event in Bangkok while Lee reached the quarter-finals in the following tournament. Neither event, however, was part of the Olympic qualifying process but were used by BWF to relaunch the world tour.
“Lee showed in Bangkok he can be as good as any top player in the world and if he can perform to a similar standard in the two remaining events, no one can stop him from securing an Olympic ticket,” said He.