Word: badminton
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...took only 39 minutes, but by the end it was a wonder that the screaming, hysterical women had any voices left at all. In one of the Games' most lopsided gold-medal matches, China's Lin Dan demolished Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei in men's single's badminton, 21-12, 21-8. As the heavily partisan fans raised the decibel level past rock-concert intensity, Lin rewarded the audience after the match by throwing his racket into the crowd. Next came one sweaty shoe, then another. Chances are Lin's throwaways are already attracting furious bidding on Chinese online...
...hard to describe just how adored this shuttlecock master is in China, where badminton is followed with the kind of passion Americans reserve for basketball or baseball. Sporting a coxcomb of spiky hair and stylish sideburns, Lin goes by the nickname Super Dan - pronounced "dahn," not like the shortened version of Daniel. After striking gold, the 24-year-old circled the stadium with a Chinese flag fluttering from his shoulders, like Superman with his cape...
...badminton's John McEnroe gets away with his tantrums because he's such a phenomenal player. Lin has been the world champion for the past two years, and the left-hander made Olympic silver medalist Lee, ranked No. 2 in the world, look sluggish and flat-footed. The Malaysian's longest scoring streak was two points. At one mortifying moment in the second game, the score...
...also the matter of international glory: Like dozens of other sports, tennis was targeted by the country's sports czars as a possible manufacturer of gold medals and world titles. In the 1990s, China poured money into tennis, siphoning off promising players, like Li, from an already dominant badminton program...
...General Assembly of jocks, some 16,000 athletes and coaches from around the world packed into 40 high-rise buildings, sprawled across 160 acres at the northwest corner of Beijing's Olympic Green. Look, there goes the Hungarian judo team, in red-and-white warm-ups! The South African badminton players, with their green and gold, share a sidewalk with the blue-clad Cuban shooter. Is Crayola an Olympic sponsor? It's a massive, multicolored gathering of young, strong and attractive athletes, a place where the food is free, the parties are plentiful, and the - well, let's just...