Singles, Men

The defending Olympic champion in men’s singles was China’s Chen Long, who had a long history of international podium successes, dating back to 2009. The winner of the two most recent World Championships (2018 and 2019) and the top-ranked qualifier was Kento Momota of Japan, who would have the advantage of playing on home soil. Also among the contenders were Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen, the 2017 world champion and 2016 Olympic bronze medallist, and the most recent world bronze medallists Kantaphon Wangcharoen of Thailand and B. Sai Praneeth of India.

In the preliminaries, both Wangcharoen and Sai Praneeth failed to reach the elimination rounds, with Sai Praneeth losing both of his matches. The biggest surprise, however, was Momota’s defeat at the hands of South Korean Heo Gwang-Hui, who also triumphed over American Timothy Lam to win the pool and advance directly to the quarterfinals. Thus the elimination rounds were dominated by Chen and Axelson, who met in the final, where Axelson bested Chen in two sets to become the first individual outside of Asia to win Olympic gold in this event since fellow Dane Poul-Erik Høyer Larsen in 1996, and the only badminton medallist from outside of Asia in Tokyo. Bronze went to Indonesia’s Anthony Ginting, a bronze medallist at both the 2014 Youth Olympics and the 2018 Asian Games, who defeated four-time Olympian Kevin Cordón of Guatemala in two sets. Cordón had eliminated Heo in the quarterfinals, before being overcome in turn by Axelsen in the semis.