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Badminton player Lianne Tan (BWF 55) also lost her second and final match in Group E of the women’s singles at the Olympic Games in Paris on Tuesday morning.
Throughout the match Tan was trailing the facts. She could not offer the Thai any resistance and had to passively endure how her opponent, previously number 1 in the world, hardly dropped a stitch and seized victory with overwhelming force.
“It was very difficult, I just couldn’t score,” our compatriot said afterwards. “My opponent also played very consistently. Defensively she was strong and offensively she scored quickly. Today she was simply better than me.
Tan started her Olympic tournament on Sunday with a straight-sets defeat (21-15 and 21-14) against Taiwan’s Tzu Ying Tai, the world number three. Only the group winner in the group of three advances to the quarterfinals.
Iron
It was Tan’s fourth Olympic Games. She previously participated in London in 2012 (seventeenth place), Rio de Janeiro in 2016 (fourteenth place) and Tokyo in 2021 (fifteenth place). “Everyone has dreams and they are different for everyone,” Tan explained. “It is therefore difficult to compare, but I am proud of myself, even though I could not win a set here. I have come from far back and I have achieved that on my own. They were always great challenges. These are my fourth Games and in between I have obtained a diploma,” said Tan, who combines top-level sport with her job as a dentist.
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At 33, Tan has not yet made plans for the future. “Honestly, I have not thought about that yet. That is a personal choice and I will make it at my own pace. I certainly do not want things to be imposed on me. For the outside world, it is easy to say: ‘she is old and she does not perform anymore’. But I will see how well I still feel and make a choice based on that.”
With Julien Carraggi (BWF 52) a second Belgian badminton player took part in Paris. The 24-year-old from Brussels also fell after two defeats in the group stage.