Doubles, Men

China’s Fu Haifeng had won gold with different partners at the last two editions of the Olympics, but he had retired and none of the 2016 medallists returned to compete in this event in Tokyo (one of the bronze medallists, Marcus Ellis, took part in the mixed doubles). This meant that reigning world champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia were considered the favorites, with Setiawan having been Olympic champion with a different partner in 2008. Top seeded going into the 2020 tournament were reigning Asian champions Marcus Gideon and Kevin Sukamuljo, also of Indonesia.

The tournament went as expected in the group stages, but a shock came in the quarterfinals, when Gideon and Sukamuljo were soundly defeated by the duo from Malaysia of Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik. This was followed by another surprise in the finals when the other Indonesian team was vanquished even more thoroughly by Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin of Taiwan. Lee and Wang went on to face China’s Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen in the final, the latter of whom had emerged victorious over the Malaysian pair. Once again, however, the Taiwanese duo had control of the match and took the gold medal with relative ease, becoming the first Taiwanese Olympic medallists in badminton (Tai Tzu-ying would take silver in the women’s singles the following day). The bronze medal match was a little harder fought, but the Malaysians came out on top, having prevented both of the favored Indonesian teams from reaching the podium.