The Indonesian badminton team recorded bad history after failing to bring home a single medal from the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, China. Indonesia badminton team has always maintained the tradition of winning medals in the competition since 1962 in Jakarta.
Indonesian badminton failed, go back home without a medal, at the 2022 Asian Games after women’s singles Gregoria Mariska Tunjung lost in the quarter-finals. Gregoria lost 10-21, 19-21 to Aya Ohori (Japan) in a match at Binjiang Gymnasium, Hangzhou, China, Thursday (5/10/2023) evening. Gregoria’s defeat completes the bitterness of Indonesian badminton, which previously lost potential medals from the men’s team, men’s doubles and men’s singles.
Gregoria is not the only Indonesian representative in the quarter-finals of badminton at the 2022 Asian Games. There are Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto and Anthony Sinisuka Ginting who are Indonesia’s mainstay to win gold. However, Fajar/Rian and Ginting also suffered defeats which also meant that Indonesia failed to realize its target of three badminton gold medals.
One week earlier, Indonesia had already lost potential gold in the men’s team event after losing 1-3 to South Korea in the quarter-finals. “We apologize to the Indonesian people for not being able to give medals to Indonesia. We hope that in the future we can be even better and we hope that we can slowly get back on track,” said Rian, quoted from a PBSI press release. “We ask for the support of all parties, hopefully the difficult situation we are experiencing will not last long and we can recover quickly. We can find our self-confidence again,” said Fajar.
Meanwhile, Ginting admitted that he had done various ways to win. “I’ve tried everything, from playing attacking in the first game to changing the pattern of play in the second game and was quite successful, actually up to 16-16 points if I’m not mistaken,” he said. “After that, Shi Feng again changed the tempo and pattern of play a lot. I also anticipated changing the pattern of play, but what I said earlier was that the opponent could be calmer, unlike in previous meetings,” said Ginting.
Not only did it fail to achieve its target, this result was also the worst in the history of the Indonesian badminton team at the Asian Games. Indonesia failed to present a medal for the first time since badminton was competed at the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta.
