In the gold medal match of the badminton men’s doubles in Tokyo, Taiwan’s Wang Chi-lin and Lee Yang defeated the Chinese team in two straight games. They were the first badminton men’s doubles pair from Taiwan to make it to the quarterfinals, and ended up winning gold.

It was no accident that they achieved so much. Their success flowed from their tireless, rigorous training and practice from an early age, their parents’ full support, and the long-term development of badminton in Taiwan.

Lee Yang (left) and Wang Chi-lin won the gold medal in badminton men’s doubles at the Tokyo Olympics, establishing a new first in Taiwan’s sports world. (courtesy of the Sports Administration, Ministry of Education)

Meeting on the road to their dreams

Wang Chi-lin’s parents are both avid amateur badminton players, his mom even continuing to play when she was pregnant with Chi-lin. His father, Wang Wei-chien, always jokes that he gave his son prenatal training, so that the 26-year-old Lin in fact has 27 years of badminton experience.

Wang began going to the courts with his parents as soon as he could walk, cultivating a passion for the sport. Even as a small child his ambition was to make the national team. Wang Wei-chien transferred his son to Taipei’s ­Minquan ­Elementary School, known for its strong badminton program. He also hired an Olympic-­caliber coach to train Wang on weekends.

Lee Yang similarly had a father who loved badminton, but he says with a smile that his father only had him take up the sport because as a child he was too fat. Badminton is a fast game, with continual stop-and-start runs and swings, and at first the chubby Lee didn’t want to play because he found it too strenuous. It was only in junior high school that he discovered he actually liked badminton.

In Lee’s second year of junior high, his father, Lee Chun-yu, transferred him to the sports class at Taipei’s Zhong­­shan Junior High. It was then that he met Wang Chi-lin for the first time.

Having gotten an earlier start in badminton, Wang performed brilliantly in elementary and junior high competitions. Lee, who continually lost, saw Wang as the kind of player he aspired to be and trained hard to try to catch up.

Under the leadership of head coach Lee Sung Yuan (left), Chen Hung Ling (right), Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin worked together to win Olympic gold. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Each in his own way

On graduating from junior high, Wang was talent spotted for the Land Bank of Taiwan’s famous badminton program, and joined its team. In 2012, in his sophomore year in senior high, he earned a place on the national elite squad at the national ranking tournament, and also came second in the men’s doubles at the Badminton Asia Junior Cham­pion­ships. The next year he did well in events including the Maldives Inter­national Challenge and the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Junior Championships, as he began to make his mark in international competitions.

Meanwhile, Lee Yang entered a different badminton power­house school, National Keelung Senior High. Although he often lost in matches, his love of the game drove him to stick with it. But throughout Lee‘s youth badminton career his accomplishments were only middling, and he was unable to advance to the national elite squad. His commitment to the sport wavered, and he opted to switch tracks and study business adminis­tra­tion in college. Seeing Lee’s sporting career falter, his father said, “I guess you don’t have the right stuff.” But these words fired Lee up, and at the 2013 national ranking tournament he became champion of the second squad and so was elevated to the elite squad.

After joining the Land Bank team, despite playing well Wang Chi-lin had no long-term partner. His partners dropped out of the sport one by one, leaving him at a loss. At that time team coach Lee Sung Yuan introduced him to Chen Hung Ling. Chen had once been ranked eighth in the world in men’s doubles and fifth in mixed doubles. He unreservedly shared his experience in international competi­tion with Wang, and after becoming partners in 2014 the two won the title in the national ranking tournament and in three Grand Prix Gold level competitions.

Meanwhile, Lee Yang joined the Taiwan Cooperative Bank team in 2015, and began to partner with Lee Jhe-huei, who had been ahead of him at the same schools from ­elementary to senior high school. The two won vari­ous titles including at the national ranking tournament, the Macau Open Grand Prix Gold competition, and the French Super Series.

Lee and Wang’s brilliant performance not only raised Taiwan’s sporting profile, it also exemplified the spirit of Taiwan.

Taking a gamble on a dream

In 2018 Wang and Chen won bronze at the BWF World Championships, and reached number four in the world rankings. In the same year, the two Lees took bronze at the Asian Games, and at one point were ranked seventh in the world. But it was also a year of dramatic turning points.

Late in 2018 the best badminton players were preparing to try to win enough ranking points to enter the 2020 Olympics. However, Chen Hung Ling, then 32, realized that because of long-standing neck and shoulder problems he was unlikely to get all the way to the Olympics and win a medal. In his view, Wang Chi-lin was especially skilled at backcourt attacking, while Lee Yang had great positioning in the forecourt, so the two had complementary styles. To make way for them, Chen resolutely gave up on the Olympics and retired.

Following Chen’s selfless decision, the Land Bank team reached out to Lee Yang. But the choice was by no means easy for Lee, for he would have to start again from scratch in terms of world ranking and points, and would have to resign his position as a full-time employee of Taiwan Co­opera­tive Bank and go through the recruitment process at the Land Bank. “It felt as if I was gambling with my whole life.” Lee, who had always been cautious and conservative, relates that after mulling it over for two months, he decided to start anew.

Working together toward the same goal, Wang and Lee have developed a deep sense of mutual trust. In the future they will continue working together to win even more glory.

Birth of an Olympic gold partnership

One of the keys to the success of the Wang‡Lee pairing has been having Chen Hung Ling as their coach. Lee Sung Yuan says that Chen had just finished competing in the world championships, so he was the best source of scouting information about possible opponents. Moreover, as an active player Chen made a great training partner. Most importantly, he was the first competitor from Taiwan to have ranked in the world’s top ten in men’s doubles and mixed doubles, so Wang and Lee greatly respected him. Chen’s ability to coolly and accurately analyze situations at events and to give guidance on strategy has served as a stabilizing force for Wang and Lee at competitions.

Any good doubles player must always be aware of their partner’s situation and make adjustments to stay in step with them. Wang and Lee are very straightforward with each other. “If a problem comes up for one of us, he will definitely raise it with the other. Friction is an inevitable part of the process, but is not an issue because we always work together to find ways to improve,” says Wang.

With their identical goals and trust that each would support the other to the very last shot, Wang and Lee devel­oped an excellent rapport. In February 2019 they had their first outstanding performance in an international competi­tion, winning the Spain Masters tournament. They went on to reach the finals in a string of BWF Super Series level opens, including in Switzerland, India, and the US.

In early 2020, international competitions ceased due to Covid-19. This gave Wang and Lee unexpected time to practice so they could improve their chemistry in terms of rotation on the court and their skills. “Early this year [2021] we played in three tournaments and won 15 straight matches. Only then did we get the feeling we were on the right track and had real rapport,” says Lee.

Nonetheless, these partners who were on such a roll ended up losing their first match at the Olympics.

Under the leadership of head coach Lee Sung Yuan (left), Chen Hung Ling (right), Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin worked together to win Olympic gold. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Expressing the spirit of Taiwan

Lee says that before Tokyo, knowledge of badminton among the Taiwanese public mostly ended at the leading singles players. “In 2017, at one point Taiwan had three teams in the world men’s doubles top ten, but nobody in Taiwan was aware of this.” Wang and Lee took on the task of drawing attention to doubles, willing themselves to absolutely not lose. With this pressure, and the nerves of their Olympic debut, in their first match they lost to India.

They were very dismayed at this loss, for it virtually ruled out any chance of them ad­vancing to the quarter­finals. But outstanding athletes are always psycho­logically tough, and they quickly adjusted their mindset: “However slim the hope, all we could do was to get our heads in the right place and not give up,” says Lee.

On the brink of elimination, they decided to enjoy their remaining matches as much as possible. Both say their most memorable match in Tokyo was against Indonesia’s “Minions” team, who formerly ranked first in the world. Lee says: “In past matches Chi-lin often hurried to return shots, allowing the opponents to create scoring opportun­ities. But in Tokyo he was very calm, and steadily broke up their possible shot lines.” Wang and Lee, who had to beat top teams throughout their path to the medal, faced the Chinese team of Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen in the finals. Unperturbed at finding their opponents ahead early in the match, they showed remarkable resilience and grabbed the momentum to win Olympic gold.

For Lee Yang, Wang Chi-lin, and Chen Hung Ling, the Olympics were just one more competition, after which they went back to their training routine, always maintaining their original passion for badminton. A viral video of Wang and Lee playing in the 2019 World Championships shows how active they were in defense, with Lee even swooping through the air three times to save shots. Not only has the duo raised the international profile of Taiwan’s badminton players, their willingness to fight to the last second to keep the shuttlecock off the ground is the finest expression of the spirit of Taiwan.

Under the leadership of head coach Lee Sung Yuan (left), Chen Hung Ling (right), Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin worked together to win Olympic gold. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Under the leadership of head coach Lee Sung Yuan (left), Chen Hung Ling (right), Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin worked together to win Olympic gold. (photo by Jimmy Lin)