Jakarta: Three of badminton’s great legends Lee Chong Wei, Taufik Hidayat, Peter Gade gathered in Jakarta on Monday for the second event of the Legends’ Global Tour, helping to raise awareness for the sport of badminton across the globe.
“While badminton has been a popular sport many Asian and European countries, I hope the sport can become popular in virtually every corner of the world,” said the 2004 Olympic Games gold-medalist Taufik Hidayat.
“The first Legends’ Vision tour was held in Beijing, and it’s finally here in Jakarta,” added Taufik.
In addition to Beijing, Jakarta, the event will also be held in Copenhagen and Kuala Lumpur later this year.
“We want to make this a global movement to promote the sport of badminton to all children around the world, we want to inspire children to pursue their dreams of being a badminton world champion,” said Taufik.
“Therefore, we want to popularize badminton to audiences in other parts of the world so that more people would know about the sport,” said Lee Chong Wei.
In the Jakarta event, those three Legends took part in thrilling exhibition men’s doubles matches against some current and former badminton greats from Indonesia. The first exhibition match was between Lee Chong Wei/Taufik Hidayat against Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan who just won the world champion on Sunday. The Lee/Hidayat pair eventually won the match 11-10. After a short recess, Lee Chong Wei partnered Peter Gade to clash with two former Olympic gold-medallists Rexy Mainaky and Candra Wijaya in an exhibition match that full of laughter. Lee “sneaked out” from the game abruptly to chat with a line judge when they were leading 10-8, while Peter Gade was left to play alone. Fortunately, Peter Gade managed to clinch the victory with 11-8. The third exhibition match was between Taufik Hidayat/Mohammad Ahsan against Peter Gade/Hendra Setiawan. Again, the two pairs provided an amusing afternoon of badminton on Monday with a lot of fun moment for everyone involved.
They also provided demonstrations and clinics aimed at inspiring the younger generation to take up the sport of badminton.
Lin Dan couldn’t make it to the Jakarta event due to personal reasons, and he apologized via video recording at the start of the event.
Hosted in each of the four Legends’ (or so called 4 Heavenly Kings of Badminton) home countries – Beijing, Jakarta, Copenhagen, Kuala Lumpur, the next Legend’s Vision will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark in conjunction with the Denmark Open that will kick off October 13 to October 18.
The last edition of the event will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia sometime in December, where Lee Chong Wei will serve as the host for the event.
