Four to Paris. Badminton players caught the qualification and caught the opponent

Who would have expected that badminton will probably be one of the most numerous Czech expeditions at the Games.

“We met here for a small celebration of Czech badminton,” opened the press conference by the chairman of the association, Petr Martinec, next to whom sat the trio of Jan Louda, Adam Mendrek and Ondřej Král. Of the likely Olympic qualifiers, only singles player Tereza Švábíková, who has been preparing for a long time in Denmark, did not participate.

The word “probable” should probably be only a formality, since the qualification will not close until April 30. However, the order should not change.

“We have a historic chance to popularize badminton and attract more people and children to it. I believe that badminton will be a phenomenon, fun and lifestyle for the whole family,” said Martinec in the introduction. Shortly afterwards, he was followed by singles player and long-term Czech badminton number one Louda and doubles players Mendrek s Králem.

Twenty-four-year-old Louda holds the 25th place out of 38 players in the battle for Paris, he is currently just behind the top 50 in the world rankings, but before his injury he was also in the top 40. “Already the beginning of the qualification was quite successful. I won the first tournament in Mexico, followed it up with the European Games and second rounds on the world tour. At the end of November, my qualifications were more or less clear,” he described.

The endless ending of the match between Louda and the fifteenth player in the world:

Four Czech badminton players can appear under the five rings for the first time. The maximum so far was two representatives. Petr Koukal and Kristína Gavnholt last competed eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro.

A fairy-tale transformation into Olympic villains

A person becomes a doubles player in their youth, singles and doubles are two different disciplines. All the more surprising is the success of Mendrek and Král, who joined forces three years ago as former singles. It was also a forced choice to some extent, the King’s doctors did not recommend playing singles based on his health, Mendrek was frustrated after failing to qualify for Tokyo. They joined forces and a miracle happened.

He holds the qualifying spot for Paris.

“Over the last three months, we achieved a lot of great results, but because there was another tournament, we didn’t have a chance to celebrate anything. And parallel monitoring of the results of our competitors took a lot of strength. We had to tame each other in order to focus on our results as well,” admitted the twenty-five-year-old Král.

“We thought that playing for the Olympics was unrealistic. So it’s funny that we failed in singles and now it worked out in doubles. It’s also a rarity on the tour,” smiled Mendrek, four years older, and acknowledged that they hadn’t even thought about the Olympics in the first half of the qualification cycle.

The single past gives the Czech couple some unexpected weapons in the hands of the specialized competition…

“We have single habits. Paradoxically, doubles players can catch on to it,” Mendrek smiled and described different types of shots that are unusual for doubles. “When they don’t expect it, it sometimes falls there. On the other hand, if they catch it, we will be under pressure again,” said the badminton player, whose father participated in the 1992 Games in Barcelona in singles.

In posh company, in front of hundreds of millions of viewers

The Czech team will also rely on the three mentioned men, who will be joined by Jiří Král, Dominik Kopřiva and Tomáš Švejda, at the Thomas Cup, which is a badminton equivalent of the tennis Davis Cup, sometimes also called the World Team Championship. From April 28th, 16 of the best teams in the world will compete in Chengdu in an extremely popular event that is broadcast to 60 countries around the world and has a reach of up to 500 million viewers.

“Participation itself is a huge milestone and a celebration for us. It’s also a bit of a reward for the boys,” explained Martinec. The Czechs got to the tournament thanks to the help of the French and the Dutch, who refused to participate. In the first case, it was probably due to reasons connected with the financial demands of the company, in the second, it was purely a sporting aspect.

“If there is no chance of success, then they don’t go,” described the mental attitude of the Dutch, Louda. Even in the Czech case, one cannot think too much about success, because the competition is merciless – Japan, Taiwan and Germany. Both Asian teams are among the favorites of the tournament. “We could think about winning with Germany in a certain constellation,” thought Martinec.