December 1st Olympic Dummy Lists out

The OSIM BWF Super Series regular season has concluded and has left its mark on the Olympic badminton prospects.  Beijing gold medallists Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan were the most notable casualties, for the time being at least.

By Don Hearn.  Photos: Badmintonphoto

Remember, these lists are not official – as only the BWF is entitled to give the names of the qualifying shuttlers – but we at Badzine have created them to give fans, and players themselves, a better view of the players who could potentially qualify for the London Olympics by showing who would be eligible to compete in the Olympics if the qualification period ended on this date.

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) made the Olympic qualification rules slightly harsher this time around.  While players such as Kim Min Jung and Ha Jung Eun of Korea were able to book their ticket to Beijing as their nation’s second pair just by placing in the world’s top 16, this year, #2 doubles pairs must climb into the top 8 to qualify for London.

Ha/Kim’s compatriots Jung/Kim, the new Macau Open champions, are still ascending toward the top 8 but meanwhile, two even higher profile pairs, both former World Champions, have been dancing to the tune of this rule.  For Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan (pictured above), winners of the men’s doubles gold in 2008, it wasn’t so much a failure to perform in the Super Series as it was their preference for multi-sport events.

The Indonesians dropped two spots out of the top 8 when they skipped the Hong Kong Open to earn silver for their nation at the biennial Southeast Asian Games.  But they will not be able to shore up their points at the Super Series Finals this year, either.  Despite having been winless last year, their 8th place points from the Taipei event were among the most helpful to their ranking of all their 2011 outings.

Along with Kido/Setiawan, the other team to slip back across a threshold were South Africa’s Dorian Lance James / Willem Viljoen, who dropped just shy of the world’s top 50, costing them the African continental slot.  These two pairs have been replaced, for now, by two from Europe: Adcock/Ellis and Bosch/Ridder.

Mixed doubles saw the opposite movement as 2009 World Champions Thomas Laybourn / Kamilla Rytter Juhl (pictured above) – on the strength of their quarter-final finish at the China Open – broke back into the top 8 to accompany compatriots Fischer Nielsen/Pedersen as London hopefuls.  They bumped Russia’s Alexandr Nikolaenko / Valeri Sorokina back to the reserve list.

There was also some intra-national jostling going on as Hong Kong Open quarter-finalist Ajay Jayaram (pictured left) edged out compatriot Parupalli Kashyap for the India spot.

Please find the latest lists at the links below.  They have been published using the world rankings as of December 1st.  We’ll try to provide the next update on conclusion of the OSIM BWF Super Series Finals.

The dummy lists:
Men’s Singles
Women’s Singles
Men’s Doubles (revised Dec 6th)
Women’s Doubles
Mixed Doubles

You will always be able to find the latest dummy lists on this page, or find it in our ‘Features’ menu at the top of any Badzine page.  You can still find the links to the dummy lists from November 3^rd and October 6^th, and to see the complete BWF world rankings, CLICK HERE