Olympics: China suffer more badminton misery

China’s Yu Yang, right, and Tang Yuanting, return a shot to Denmark’s Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl at the women’s double semi-finals at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016. AP PHOTO

China missed out on Olympic women’s doubles badminton gold for the first time since the 1992 Barcelona Games on Tuesday when Tang Yuanting and Yu Yang lost in the semi-finals.

They went down to Denmark’s Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Christinna Pedersen in a 21-16, 14-21, 21-19 thriller.

“We were thinking about the medal and that is really stupid to do,” said Rytter Juhl. “It was 19-20 and I said to Christinna, ‘Come on, now we take it’.”

It was a second blow to China in the space of 24 hours after their hopes of repeating their 2012 Olympic sweep of all five golds were shattered when both their pairs lost in the semi-finals of the mixed doubles.

Rytter Juhl and Pedersen’s win guaranteed European badminton powerhouse Denmark only their fifth Olympic medal in the sport.

Later Tuesday, top seeds Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei beat Chinese compatriots Xu Chen and Ma Jin 21-7, 21-11 in the mixed doubles bronze medal match.

“We won at the London Olympics and back then our goal was to hope to get some results at Rio,” said Zhang.

“Even though today we could not defend our championship in mixed doubles, I think with this experience we will do better in life and our professional careers.”