An Se Young or Chen Yufei or Carolina Marin- who will stake claim to greatness?

There is generational greatness on offer at the Paris Olympics, even if not the GOAT (greatest of all time) tags that get tossed around in sport, without any bleating debates ever being resolved.

Korean An Se Young has had such a phenomenal rise since Tokyo Olympics that she makes Chen Yufei, the reigning champion, look distinctly like one of many challengers, while she carries airs of a title holder.

Se-young is expected to win women’s singles gold, her unreal footwork that anticipates and processes opponents’ shots and gets under the shuttle, making her look unbeatable even in the presence of a 4-pronged challenge. This is posed by a quartet of blazing ambitions, albeit bruised and slowed by wear and tear in the form of Chen Yufei, Carolina Marin, Akane Yamaguchi and Tai Tzu Ying.

Se-young’s might look like a coronation, but seldom has a group of four fellow yellow metal contenders, possibly at their last Games, been this hungry and desperate to stake claim on being crowned greatest at the biggest finale for the golden generation. The Korean is a shining diamond though, and will take almighty work to be denied.

She’s 22, and quite ready to be annointed at the Olympics, just like Xuerui Li (2012 London, at 21), Carolina Marin (2016 Rio, at 23) and Chen Yufei (2021 Tokyo, at 23) were. Having won the World Championship in 2023, Se-young went on to make 11 finals out of 13 on a hot streak, winning 9 audacious titles on the circuit, before a screeching injury. Her first title had come beating her idol, Thai Ratchanok Intanon, at 16. And her most recent one, reminded Chen Yufei of just how difficult the Olympic title defense could be.

Chinese are giving an impression of being a tad bothered, despite the Korean spending long stretches, managing her injury that stems from the mileage she crisscrosses on court. Chinese coach Luo was quoted by CMG media as saying, “An Se-young is one of the main opponents for us. She may not be as aggressive as she used to be before suffering an injury at the Asian Games, but no one has 100-percent confidence in beating An in a women’s singles match, even after she slows down.” His worried brow furrowed from every word.

Yufei herself has happily passed on the pressure to the Korean, saying, “I think An reads the match better than before and better than I do,” Chen told CMG, not convinced about the injury tipping any scales. “She understands the sport well. She always chooses the right tactics and reads her opponent’s plays correctly. She knows exactly how to win the match.”

Yufei has consistently downplayed her own credentials, and though the Chinese can well feign this underdog facade, and step up in the nick of time for gold – like her at Tokyo, or Chen Long at Rio – she has struggled to win her first World title in the interim.

“I have been in my comfort zone since I won the women’s singles Olympic gold medal,” CMG quoted Yufei as saying. “I haven’t been able to achieve any major breakthrough since Tokyo. I have lost many matches by no more than two points. Those matches looked close and I seemed to be working hard, but I just couldn’t win. It had nothing to do with my stamina. I just lacked enough will to win.”

Yufei was vocal about a mental burnout due to the crazy Tour schedule, before she went off on military training while recovering from a foot injury. Her game relies on nailing the clutch points, and even at Tokyo it was after hanging on by a thread till 17-17 that she suddenly turned the final on its head, surprising Tai Tzu Ying.

There’s a Hindi saying whose literal translation is ‘mother has arrived’, but it certainly doesn’t mean that. It’s about suddenly being possessed by great energy, and Chen Yufei left Tzu Ying bewildered by how she nicked that pandemic time final in an empty arena. She was taken to 3 by Sindhu at the French venue, and Indians will merrily take a flipped result of that marathon. But Yufei is trained to go big at the Olympics by the Chinese, and is aiming to match Zhang Nang (gold at Athens and Beijing), in shuttle pantheons.

She will be an odd Olympic double champ with two gold, who still doesn’t have a World title, but Paris is her stab at greatness, when surrounded by once-in-a-lifetime talent as this.

Chinese coach Luo kept a long face when remarking to CMG: “Chen wants to win her second gold in Paris, but I can feel that something has changed with her mindset. She may not handle it well when difficulties grow too big for her. That’s one of my concerns.” This has been an unbelievable decade of brimming talent in badminton at the top, and it is entirely believable that the brilliant Tai Tzu Ying could leave Yufei with a lingering imposters syndrome, even after the Chinese picked Olympic gold beating the Taiwanese. Both though, will be attested as greats if they win in this field.

Yamaguchi has two world titles, and being denied in Tokyo makes her singularly dangerous at Paris. As such, she was beating Se-young in most tournament finals, before hurting her right leg. No one knows what preparation and fitness she has arrived in Paris with, having disappeared from the circuit. She will go down as Japan’s greatest though, if she can finally win them a gold.

Perhaps the most obvious contender for greatness, though she barely is anyone’s favourite for podium, is Carolina Marin. One Olympic gold, three World Championships. Another gold and GOATs will get known for roarin’-like-Marin, because no one has 3 World + 2 Olympics titles. Coach Fernando Rivas has spent years working with the French team and will know ins and outs of the conditions intimately. Marin hasn’t won much on the Tour, lost finals in fact since All England, but she was clearly saving for the last.

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At 31, she’s much older than the rest, but no one’s nursed the hurt of missing Tokyo as much as her.

Tai Tzu Ying is an uncrowned great of this generation, and you wonder if all the showering of that praise and awe over her magical skills, holds her back from the real kills, from getting properly hungry for a gold medal. Hers is a visual legacy for connoisseurs, but a gold shines different, and she doesn’t have any at either Worlds or Olympics.

An Se-young might squish all these legendary dreams of her famous seniors in a fortnight, if she matches Bang Soo-hyun who won gold at Atlanta 1996. The attention hardly faces her. “If you think of it as pressure, it becomes pressure,” she was quoted as saying by Olympics.com. “I’d rather enjoy the spotlight on me. That’s why I always try to perform well and celebrate as much as possible so the Korean people can enjoy what I’m doing as well. If I give my all in every game I play, I think I’ll be able to reach my goals.”

To think, she’s not even aiming for greatness as such, but might breezily saunter towards it.

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