Taipei: After successfully defending their men’s doubles gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin have decided to pursue different career paths respectively.
Lee Yang has decided to retire from his career as a badminton player following this year’s Chinese Taipei Open and transition to a new role as an associate professor at the National Taiwan University of Sport.
As for Wang Chi-Lin, he will continue to compete internationally, but with a new teammate, Chiu Hsiang-Chieh. On August 9th, Wang disclosed that he would begin collaborating with his new partner at the upcoming Japan Open. Due to their focus on preparing for the Olympics, Wang and Chiu haven’t had much time to train together. They plan to use the Japan Open to build and work on their chemistry. This marks a shift for Wang, who will now transition from being guided by others to taking on a leadership role.
Chiu Hsiang-Chieh, 21, is a Taiwanese men’s doubles player with an impressive height of nearly 190 cm. His love for speed led him to choose the faster-paced sport such as badminton, and men’s doubles as his main discipline.
Speaking about the new partnership, Wang Chi-Lin admitted to feeling some pressure, “Previously, it was senior players like Chen Hung-Ling and Lee Yang, with them playing the organizational role and me as the executor.” He added, “Now, as I take on the role of leading a junior teammate, I will need to focus more on organizing and leading, so I need to adopt a more mature mindset and remain calm on the court.”
“Since such a young and promising teammate is willing to partner with me, I certainly don’t want to let him down,” Wang said humbly. He mentioned that he plans to seek advice from Chen Hung-Ling and Lee Yang on how to organize better and coordinate their play.
Wang also stated that he will soon resume training after taking a break upon returning from Paris Olympics. Wang and Chiu are scheduled to depart next Sunday to prepare for the upcoming tournaments in Japan and Korea. “Next week, we will start training together to build our chemistry and coordination. Hopefully, we can perform well in the upcoming tournaments,” explained Wang.
