Source: REUTERS/Arko Datta
[Saba Sports News] Badminton was officially included in the competition during the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. According to statistics, at least one left-handed player has won the gold medal in badminton in each of the seven Olympic Games from 1992 to 2016. For instance, in the 1992 Olympics, South Korean star Kim Moon-Soo won the gold medal in the men’s doubles event. Dane Poul-Erik Hoyer Larsen, the current president of the Badminton World Federation, won the men’s singles gold medal in the 1996 Olympics. Zhang Jun, the current chairman of the Chinese Badminton Association, won the mixed doubles gold medal in both the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. Lin Dan secured the men’s singles gold medal in both the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. Fu Haifeng of the Chinese badminton team won the men’s doubles gold medal in the 2012 Olympics. Spanish left-handed star Carolina Marin Martin won the women’s singles gold medal in the 2016 Olympics, and Fu Haifeng also won the men’s doubles gold medal in the same event. Research suggests that left-handed players have a unique advantage in badminton due to the direct transmission of motor reaction signals from the right brain to the left hand. This physiological mechanism allows them to react faster than right-handed individuals.