Kim Won-ho (L) and Jeong Na-eun of South Korea celebrate their victory over Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yu-jung of South Korea in the semifinals of the mixed doubles badminton event at the Paris Olympics at La Chapelle Arena in Paris on Aug. 1, 2024. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
PARIS, Aug. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — From breathtaking shotmaking to heart-stopping rallies to a player getting sick in the middle of a late comeback, the badminton mixed doubles semifinal match between two South Korean tandems in Paris on Thursday had everything you could ask for.
Kim Won-ho and Jeong Na-eun outlasted compatriots Seo Seung-jae and Chae Yu-jung for a dramatic 2-1 (21-16, 20-22, 23-21) victory at La Chapelle Arena in the French capital.
Kim and Jeong set up a final date with Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong for Friday, while Seo and Chae, the 2023 world champions, fell to the bronze medal match against Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino of Japan.
And to think: Kim and Jeong almost didn’t even make it out of the group stage.
They lost two out of their three matches in Group A action, including one to Zhang and Huang. Two other teams finished with one win and two losses, but Kim and Jeong advanced to the quarterfinals because they won a higher percentage of the games than the other two.
In the knockout stage, Kim and Jeong ended up on the same side of the bracket as Seo and Chae. The all-Korean showdown was set up in the semifinals after both teams won their first knockout matches.
Seo and Chae, world No. 2, entered Thursday’s match as the favorite. They had never lost to Kim and Jeong, ranked eighth, in five previous meetings.
But it was the Kim and Jeong duo that took control of the match early and survived some nervy late moments to book a spot in the final.
“I think it’s a miracle that we’ve reached the gold medal match,” Jeong said afterward, choking back on tears of joy. “We played with so much sense of urgency.”
Kim, son of two-time Olympic women’s doubles champion Gil Young-ah, said he and his partner arrived in Paris thinking this would be their last Olympics. Kim is 25 and Jeong is 24.
“Now that we’ll be representing South Korea in the final, we will do everything we possibly can to win the match,” Kim added.
Kim appeared to have hurt his right knee at the end of the second game. And during the third game, after his team had built a 16-13 lead on three straight points, Kim called a medical time out and vomited into a plastic bag.
“It wasn’t very professional of me to get sick during the match and to show everyone how much I was hurting. But I didn’t have anything left on my battery at that point,” Kim said. “I told Na-eun, ‘I can’t do anything right now. You have to take care of this. And she did a great job getting us across the finish line.”
Jeong said she did whatever she could to settle down his partner while also trying to make some shots after struggling in the earlier portion of the match.
Both Jeong and Kim said they have learned a great deal from Seo and Chae while training together over the years.
“I think we have grown up because of the lessons we learned from playing against them in practices,” Jeong said.
Kim added: “Seung-jae is my role model. I’ve come this far because of what he’s done to help me along the way. I am grateful for that.”
(Yonhap)
