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China the Olympic badminton kings after Ji's singles victory
SYDNEY, Sept 23 (AFP) - Ji Xinpeng sealed China's unprecedented domination of the Olympic badminton tournament by brilliantly securing the men's singles title here Saturday. The 22-year-old from Hunan claimed his first major triumph to give China four golds out of a possible five in Sydney. Only the men's doubles, in which the Chinese failed to get any medal, eluded their otherwise unstoppable march to victory. That gold went to Indonesia's Tony Gunawan and Candra Wijaya, but their compatriot Hendrawan was unable to compete with Ji in the men's singles final. China's seventh seed emerged triumphant 15-4, 15-13 after 45 minutes, having mixed deft touches with sudden lightning strikes. Few could begrudge Ji his succes. On his route to gold he defeated world number one and second seed Peter Gade of Denmark after earlier knocking out top seeded Indonesian Taufik Hidayat Yet he had come into the Olympics with just a victory in the Japan Open earlier this year as his previous biggest tournament win. Having beaten Hendrawan in that event, Ji attacked his more experienced opponent confidently from the start of Saturday's final, quickly building an 8-1 lead. Once he had taken the first game, not even falling 4-9 and then 10-13 behind in the second could upset his play. Ji simply found another gear to win the last five points in a row and secure the gold on his first match point.
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