Doubles, Men

The defending Olympic champions in the badminton men’s doubles, Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia, were absent from the London Games, having dropped from the badminton circuit for the birth of Kido’s son. This left Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, Beijing’s runners-up and four time World Champions (2006, 2009-2011), as the top seed of the tournament and hungry for redemption after having failed to win the title at their home Olympics. Jeong Jae-Seong and Lee Yong-Dae of South Korea, who had been third seeded at the 2008 Games, but had been eliminated in the opening round, were back for 2012 as the number two ranked duo. Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen of Denmark and Go Seong-Hyeon Yu Yeon-Seong of South Korea rounded out the top four.

With Go and Yu failing to reach the quarterfinals, it became a matter of not who would win the podium spots, but in which order. The Chinese squad and the remaining South Korean team did not surrender a single round during the group stage, but the latter fell to the Danish team 21-17, 18-21, 20-22 in the semi-finals. Boe and Mogensen, however, could not match Cai and Fu’s intensity, nor their drive to capture the Olympic crown, and were soundly defeated 16-21, 15-21 in the final. The Chinese victory in this event meant that the nation had swept all five gold medals from the London badminton tournament, a first in Olympic history. Jeong and Lee, meanwhile, captured the bronze medal by emerging victorious against Malaysia’s Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong 23-21, 21-10.