Looking to smash it

Editor's note: With the Olympic stage set, and golden glory beckoning, Chinese athletes have been going all-out to ensure it will be a medal-laden campaign at Paris 2024.

Watch out! The most dominant force in badminton is all set to reign supreme at the Olympics again.

With its collective strength restored and tested at recent major tournaments, the Chinese badminton team is primed and looking to serve up a gold-laden campaign at the Paris Olympics, leaning on a depth and diversity that no other contenders can match.

Led by the red-hot men's singles star Shi Yuqi, who has just replaced Danish ace Viktor Axelsen as the new world No 1, Team China now dominates the world rankings in four of the five events, with women's singles the only discipline topped by a foreign competitor — South Korea's reigning world champion An Se-young.

Team China's "three-peat" — winning the world mixed team title at the Sudirman Cup and the men's and women's team crowns at the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals, respectively — over the past 13 months has raised high hopes that a clean sweep of all five golds at the Olympics, achieved only once in history by the invincible Chinese squad at London 2012, is possible in the French capital.

Zhang Jun, president of the Chinese Badminton Association, did not mince words about Team China's Paris ambition.

"Of course we will try our best to compete for gold in all five events," Zhang said at the launch of the "Popular Badminton" International Legends Tour in Guangzhou on Monday.

"Our final preparation is going well. Physically, the players are all healthy and with no injury concerns. We've tailored specific training plans for each athlete, targeting their main opponents.

"We just have to help our athletes stay focused, try to take the pressure off them and approach everything as we normally would," said Zhang, who won back-to-back mixed doubles Olympic titles with partner Gao Ling at the 2000 and 2004 Games.