The world’s top-ranked shuttler An Se-young soared to her first Olympic gold medal in the women’s singles in Paris on Monday, giving South Korea its first badminton singles title in 28 years.
An defeated He Bingjiao of China 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) in the final at Porte de La Chapelle Arena in the French capital to become just the second South Korean woman to win an Olympic singles title, joining Bang Soo-hyun from 1996.
South Korea now has 11 gold medals overall, just two shy of matching its Summer Olympics record, set in Beijing in 2008 and matched four years later in London.
An had lost the opening games of her two previous knockout matches but didn’t mess around against He with the gold medal at stake.
She pulled away from an early seesaw match 한국을 with three straight points for a 12-9 lead. With a series of well-struck shots that kept He moving up and down the court, An won the majority of long rallies.
Just when He tried to keep things close, An won the final five points of the first game to win it 21-13.
The Chinese player showed a little bit of life in the second game, as she pulled into an 11-11 tie with four consecutive points. But An responded with a 5-0 run, capped by a hard smash that set up an easy push shot.
He won an extended rally late in the match to stay alive but An converted her gold medal point on her third try when He’s return went long.
“I don’t have words to describe how happy I am right now,” An said. “I didn’t want to cry, but the sense that I’ve finally done it was so overwhelming. I had so many different emotions bottled up inside and they all came out today.”