Zii Jia’s dream of winning gold comes to an end

KUALA LUMPUR: Thailand’s world champion Kunlavut Vitidsarn dashed Malaysia’s hopes as he ended Lee Zii Jia’s quest to secure the country’s first Olympic gold medal in the semifinals today.

According to FMT, despite playing with great enthusiasm, Zii Jia was unable to prevent Kunlavut from winning the match with scores of 14-21, 15-21 in 43 minutes.

The world No. 7 will now face the loser of the match between Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen and India’s Lakshya Sen to determine the bronze medal.

Zii Jia had hoped to become the second Malaysian male badminton player to reach the Olympic final.

The last Malaysian male singles player to compete in an Olympic final was Lee Chong Wei.

The former world No. 1 competed in three Olympic finals – Beijing (2008), London (2012), and Rio de Janeiro (2016).

However, he lost all those matches and returned with silver medals.

In his Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, Zii Jia was defeated by China’s Chen Long in the round of 16.