OLYMPICS DAY 1 : Round Up of Kick-off Day

With the pomp and ceremony over with it was time for the players to get down to the serious business at the impressive University of Technology Gymnasium in Beijing today. It was a day of mixed emotions for Germany and the big winners of the day were Olga Konon from Belarus and Chloe Magee from Ireland.

By Mark Phelan. Photos: Badmintonphoto.com (live from Beijing)

The badminton competition opened with a mouth-watering match between world number 13 Juliane Schenk of Germany and Marie Kristin Yulianti of Indonesia, the world number 21. The opening game went the way of the higher-ranked German 21-18 but Yulianti, the runner-up at the recent Indonesia Open Super Series, battled back to take the next two games and the match 21-13, 22-20.

The biggest upset of the day came when Olga Konon of Belarus (photo) disposed of world number 24 Xing Aiying of Indonesia in a most convincing manner 21-19, 21-12. Konon, ranked 47th in the world, was in a jubilant mood and said of her win “This has been unbelievable, I have never played outside of Europe and the atmosphere is amazing.”

Chloe Magee from Ireland continued the trend set by Konon by beating Kati Tolmoff of Estonia in three games 18-21, 21-18, 21-19. Magee, ranked 77th in the world, who is coming off the back of an impressive, silver-medal performance at the recent US Open, battled back from the death to take the final game with a 6-1 run to send her higher-ranked opponent packing.

Other winners on the day were Anna Rice, who had to overcome three gruelling games to see off American number 1 Eva Lee 21-15, 19-21, 21-19. Larisa Griga and Jeanine Cicognini made it a great day for the graduates of the IBA academy in Saarbrucken and Tracey Hallam saw off the threat of Yip Pui Yin in an all-top-16 match 21-15, 21-17.

“It was great to beat her as I felt I was underdog for the match, but I didn't let her attack today,” Hallam said of her win.

In the men’s singles, the opening match of the tournament saw world number 13 Wacha from Poland ease to victory over Raul Must of Estonia 21-14, 21-15. Match 2 saw Scott Evans from Ireland almost cause an upset before he faltered, when leading 18-15 in the final game, to eventually lose out to world number 24 Marc Zwielber of Germany 18-21, 21-18, 19-21.

“I’m very disappointed. I had the chance in the last set to take the match and I just did not finish it off,” said Evans of his defeat.

Ville Lang from Finland continued his good season to date and in his opening Olympic match saw off the challenge of Druzchenko of Ukraine 21-12, 21-19.

Erwin Kehlhoffner (photo) of France, who will retire after the games to take up a teaching post, had to come back from 2 match points down in the second game to eventually see off the threat of Stuart Gomez of Australia 19-21, 22-20, 21-15.

“I didn’t know what had happened, I just played with my guts and I didn’t realise I had match points against me but I didn’t want to end my career without a fight,” Kehlhoffner said of his remarkable match.

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