PETALING JAYA (ANN/THE STAR) – The chance to emulate an idol like Liliyana Natsir doesn’t come often for mixed doubles shuttler Toh Ee Wei. That’s why she’s determined to give her all alongside Chen Tang Jie to pursue an Olympic medal in Paris.
Liliyana captured gold for Indonesia with Tontowi Ahmad in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro edition after defeating then national pair Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying in the final.
Liliyana also won silver in the 2008 Beijing Games with Nova Widianto, who is currently coaching Ee Wei and Tang Jie.
Nova joined the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) at the end of 2022 and succeeded in helping Tang Jie-Ee Wei, who were just paired up, to qualify for their first Olympics.
Ee Wei is now fired up to follow in the footsteps of Nova and Liliyana.
“Obviously, this is one of the motivations for me especially in the Olympics where anything can happen,” said Ee Wei.
“Tang Jie and I just need to have confidence in ourselves and go out there and fight hard. Both of us always want to win when we are on court and this has helped us get to where we are now.”
Ee Wei knows that she and Tang Jie, who are ranked ninth in the world, need to defy the odds to secure a podium finish.
The pair though received a boost after they were placed in a favourable Group D along with China’s world No 2 Feng Yanzhe-Huang Dongping, Singapore’s world No 18 Terry Hee-Jessica Tan and United States’ Vinson Chiu-Jennie Gai (No 30) in the Olympics badminton competition which will be held from July 27-Aug 5 at the Adidas Arena in Porte de la Chapelle.
Only the top two pairs in the group will progress to the quarter-finals.
A fresh draw will be conducted after the group stages.
While Tang Jie-Ee Wei have a good chance of making it out of their group, they will likely face a fellow top 10 pair in the last eight and need to be ready for the tough challenge.
Their potential opponents could be China’s world No 1 Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong, South Korea’s reigning world champions Seo Seung-jae-Chae Yujung, world No 8 Kim Won-ho-Jeong Na-eun or Thailand’s 2021 world title winners Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Sapsiree Taerattanachai.
