OLYMPICS : What have the Past Champions been doing?

With so many badminton players announcing their retirement immediately following the Olympic Games, many famous faces quickly become merely famous names for badminton fans. Our correspondent Aaron Wong takes a look at the lives currently being led by the owners of some of those famous names.

By Aaron Wong, with Manuel Rösler. Photos: Badmintonphoto

Athens 2004 Champion Taufik Hidayat was snapped by a Reuters photographer as he arrived at Beijing airport on Tuesday. He appeared in good colour and the only thing contagious was his ear-to-ear grin despite reports of his having been hospitalised recently.

Taufik is the defending Olympic champion and returns as the 7th seed - everyone can do with a touch of luck in a big competition. Should he succeed in going all the way, he can again look forward to a billion Rupiah, which is the amount the government has promised Indonesians who take home a gold medal. He was bestowed with honorary Greek citizenship shortly after the Athens Games. His opponent in that final was Shon Seung Mo of Korea, who also continues to compete on the world circuit but did not qualify for the Beijing games.

These are Taufik's third Olympics, and he was world #1 at the Sydney Games in 2000 at age 19.

August 2008 also marks the first birthday of his first child.

Sydney 2000 Champion Ji Xinpeng, in the month of May, participated as an Olympic torchbearer in his home city of Xiamen in the southern Chinese province of Fujian, the same province that current world #1 Lin Dan also hails from.

Several weeks earlier, Ji unexpectedly found himself in the world media spotlight as Lin Dan was alleged to have punched him during a training session. Ji downplayed the incident.

From the quarterfinal stages onwards, Ji Xinpeng beat Taufik Hidayat, Dane Peter Gade, and then Indonesian Hendrawan to win the gold medal.

Ji continued playing competitively for a year after Sydney but began pulling out of tournaments like the 2001 Malaysia and Indonesia Opens citing injury. He later made the final of the World Grand Prix but easily succumbed to India's Pullela Gopichand in the 7-point, best of 5 games format. He drifted into retirement and was revealed at the time to be suffering from the heart condition known as endomyocarditis. Ji took on a coaching role with the national team that was announced in November 2002 by Chinese head coach, Li Yongbo.

Ji Xinpeng has been busy blogging several times a week leading up to these Games. His latest entry, just 3 days ago, sings of the blue skies in Bejing with a photo to prove it. Find out more at his website http://big5.sports.cn/b5/jixinpeng.sports.cn/

Atlanta 1996 Champion Poul Erik Høyer Larsen famously tore up his shirt the moment he won gold over Dong Jiong of China. Without losing one single game during the whole tournament, the 31-year-old had become the first - and, to date, the only - European shuttler to win an Olympic gold medal.

In 1996, he was in the prime of his career, winning his second All-England title in a row, along with another Swiss Open title and his third consecutive European men’s singles title. In Atlanta, he was playing in twelve-year-old Yonex shoes because of superstition. They had to be mended many times and they wouldn’t stand for another match until the memorable Olympic final against the favoured Dong Jiong of China.

In an astonishing way, the tall Dane destroyed the Chinese hopes of the gold medal. Calm, relaxed and self-confident he won point by point. Again and again he placed his smash on the side lines of Jiong's court. It was Hoyer who didn’t make mistakes at his day. With the score of 15-12, 15-12 he beat his opponent and secured Europe's biggest ever win over the dominating Asians.

He was already married with a son and living in England, and after Atlanta he gave Lasse a brother named Mikkel.

Poul was open about his reason for living in England, which was so that he could maximise his state-sponsored income through minimising tax. He felt that talking about it would make other players reflect on their incomes during their careers, and what that can afford them later in life.

Poul's playing career lasted into 2001. He moved back to Denmark and had a stint holding down a regular day job as a marketing manager.

Afterwards, he focused his energies with more passion by using his fame to benefit fundraising for diabetes research and raising awareness about healthy eating habits for children. He parlayed his elite sporting experiences into becoming a personal coach to other athletes and a business consultant to big businesses, and sometimes combined both roles. He has been involved on the board of Boldklubbens Skjold, Denmark's biggest football club but he switched some weeks ago into handball management. He also does television commentary for the Danish badminton league games.

Barcelona 1992 Champion Alan Budi Kusuma defeated Ardy Wiranata in an all-Indonesian inaugural Olympic final.

Long before golden couple of the moment Xie Xingfang and Lin Dan of China, and earlier than Korea's Ra Kyung Min and Kim Dong Moon or Camilla Martin and Peter Gade, the badminton world had Alan Budi Kusuma and Susi Susanti. They are the only couple to have won a gold medal each, which sent their country into a frenzy.

Alan and Susi married in February 1997 at a lavish wedding attended by 2000 guests. They have 3 children.

They played their last competitive match in October 1999. Since then Alan has largely stayed out of the limelight, preferring to concentrate on his and Susi's badminton racquet company named Astec, while she pursues her other small business endeavours such as running a baby shop, opening a reflexology and sports massage centre, and mentoring the 2008 Indonesian Uber Cup team.

In 2002, the pair made an appearance in Perth, Australia, for an exhibition match. In 2003, they highlighted the prejudice of Chinese-Indonesians being asked to show their Republic of Indonesia Citizenship Certificates (SBKRI) when arranging their official documents.

Alan and Susi have twice been Olympic torchbearers: at Athens and most recently through the streets of Jakarta in support of the Beijing games.

Badzine’s coverage of the Olympics is brought to you by YONEX

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