Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei officially announced the end of his illustrious badminton career, speaking to a large crowd of journalists at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.
It has been less than a year since the four-time All England champion was diagnosed with nasal cancer. He announced last autumn that his cancer treatment in Taiwan had been successful and that he would be returning to international competition in early 2019 but on the advice of his physicians, he continually postponed his comeback, despite initially entering the Malaysia Open.
According to a report today in The Star, Lee revealed at the press conference that after his latest consultation with his doctors the conclusion was that high intensity physical activity would be too risky.
Lee Chong Wei retires with 69 international titles to his name, including 4 All England titles, 3 Commonwealth Games men’s singles gold medals, and a record 12 Malaysia Open singles titles. He was the undisputed king of the BWF’s Superseries, racking up 46 titles from 2007 through 2017. The only three players with even close to that number of titles were competing in two doubles categories each.
Lee Chong Wei is arguably even better known for the many finals he didn’t win, as he took the silver medal at the Olympic Games no fewer than three times, at the Asian Games once, and at the World Championships four times, of which one was later annulled. On 5 of these 8 occasions, it was China’s Lin Dan who denied Lee the gold and the Malaysian was on hand to congratulate his friend after Lin won the Malaysia Open earlier this spring. Both men were clearly hoping to continue their rivalry at the Worlds this year, and possibly even the Tokyo Olympics, that is until Lee was forced to make this decision to retire.
Lee’s first international tournament result on record is from the 1998 Malaysia Open, when he competed at the age of 15, and it was almost exactly 20 years until his last international on-court appearance, when he lost in the semi-finals of last year’s Indonesia Open, just one week after picking up his 12th title at home. He retires with over US$2 million in prize money and, while not all historical records are available, it is almost certain that he is the first badminton player ever to pass that milestone.
Lee married former Malaysian women’s singles star Wong Mew Choo in the autumn of 2012 and the couple have two sons. We at Badzine wish Lee Chong Wei all success and happiness in life after badminton for this incredible athlete.
Photos: Badmintonphoto
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