Paris Olympics 2024: The bronze that got away!

Lakshya Sen returns to Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia in Paris yesterday. Pic/PTI

It is galling for the Indian badminton lover to try and digest the fact that Lakshya Sen flattered to deceive, and was instrumental in India's ending its badminton campaign in the 2024 Paris Olympics without a medal.

Sen off the boil

Sitting pretty at the Porte de La Chapelle Arena with a game in the bag, and a more than handy lead of 8-3 in the second game of his Olympic bronze medal play-off duel with Malaysia's Lee Zii Jia, the 22-year-old Indian suddenly went off the boil, and simply could not recover his mojo, to succumb to a 21-13, 16-21, 11-21 defeat in 71 minutes.

Lee Zii Jia. Pic/PTI

As had happened at an almost identical stage of the second game against Denmark's Viktor Axelsen in the semi-final the previous day, Sen had a small lapse of concentration that allowed the speedy, powerful 26-year-old Malaysian to suddenly move up a couple of gears and wrest nine points in a row to totally turn the tables on his younger adversary.

Brushing aside history, which had him trailing the Indian 1-4 in career head-to-head meetings, Lee simply went on the rampage, making full use of his quicksilver reflexes and stinging smash to pile up the points and thrust Sen out of the equation. It helped the Malaysian that he was on the better side of the court in the second half of the decider, playing against the drift after the change of ends, and benefitting from the fact that the shuttle stayed in at the opposite baseline, forcing Sen repeatedly into errors of judgment.

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Injury distraction

A grazed elbow, which had been taped even before the match, but bled at times during the encounter, making it mandatory as per the rules to have it attended to by a (bumbling) official doctor, proved more of a distraction than a source of any real discomfort for Sen. As he admitted after the match, the blood on the court and mopping up operations caused him to lose momentum on more than one occasion.

Perhaps a podium spot was not destined to be. After the totally tepid gold medal match between Axelsen and Thailand's reigning world champion, Kunlavut Vitidsarn ended with a 21-11, 21-11 demolition of the Thai's challenge, it was small comfort for the Indian badminton lover to conclude that their compatriot had given the Dane a far more harrowing time than the Thai, and could be considered the second-best male player in these Olympics, worthy of a silver medal.