The last game is lost, badminton pros Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Lohau are a bit dissatisfied. But the mixed team wins bronze at the World Championships. No German duo has ever been that good. The national coach sets the direction: the medal must be celebrated.
The winning streak of German badminton pros Mark Lamsfuss and Isabel Lohau ended in the World Cup semifinals, but the duo won a historic medal with mixed bronze. The European champions lost 8:21, 6:21 to the Japanese Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino in Tokyo on Saturday. The third place was not played.
“We played insane games this week and played at a very high level. Unfortunately, we were a bit out of breath today and our opponents played their game mercilessly,” said Lamsfuss: “Nevertheless, we showed that we are among the best .”
The top German pairing from Wipperfeld near Cologne and Bischmisheim in Saarland won the first German mixed medal at a world championships by beating seventh in the world Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet from Hong Kong on Friday. National coach Detlef Poste said: “We still have to digest the defeat – and then definitely appreciate and celebrate the medal and many other good performances.”
For the German Badminton Association (DBV), which has so far only been able to celebrate World Championship medals in women’s singles, it is the first podium finish in eleven years. Previously, Huaiwen Xu (2005, 2006), Petra Overzier (2006) and Juliane Schenk (2011) had each won bronze at the World Championships.
Watanabe and Higashino missed the mixed title in their home country in the final against the Chinese Zhen Si Wei and Huang Ya Qiong. Akane Yamaguchi triumphed in singles for Japan. In the men’s category, Viktor Axelsen from Denmark won his second world title a year after his Olympic victory in Tokyo.
