KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 — As the one-year qualifying period for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics badminton event is set to begin on April 29, host Japan is expected to dominate the badminton court at the Olympic Games.

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) president, Poul-Erik Hoyer Larsen believes Japan has a good chance of dominating the podium with the rise of its shuttlers in all five departments.

“I think Japan has shown great effort in last couple of years, increasingly doing well in all five categories. Japanese players have performed on the highest level and I will say they are the top nation,” the Danish said.

“It will be interesting to see if any other traditional countries like China, Malaysia and Indonesia will qualify and win the gold medals. There’s a good chance, they really have to work very hard,” the 1996 Atlanta Olympics gold medallist told Bernama in an exclusive interview during the recently concluded Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi.

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With five gold medals at stake, namely in men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles as well as mixed doubles, Japanese is having a good run prior to the one-year qualification period starting in April 29 this year until April 26, 2020.

At the recent All England early March for example, Japanese players had six podium finishes, as world number one, Kento Momota claimed the men’s singles title, while Yuta Watanabe-Arisa Higashino were the runners up in the mixed doubles.

Despite not winning the women’s doubles title at the prestigious tournament, three Japanese pairs, Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Hagahara; Yuki Fukushima-Sayaka Hirota and Shiho Tanaka-Koharu Yonemoto made it into semifinals, while Takeshi Kamura-Keigo Sonoda were in men’s doubles last four stage.

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In terms of rankings, Japan’s 10 representatives ranked among top 10 in the world, giving better pool of talents and competitions to increase their chances of winning medals.

Meanwhile, for Malaysia, only two pairs ranked top 10 in world — Rio 2016 Olympics silver medallist Chang Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying (5) and Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie (9) in the mixed doubles, but none of the players made into top 20 in the men’s and women’s singles.

Traditionally, China dominates the badminton medal tally in Olympics with a total of 31 medals (including 18 gold) since Barcelona 1992 Games, while the London 2012 edition, China swept clean all five gold medals. — Bernama