Twelve Years On, China's Badminton Women Reclaim the Asian Games Team Title
China's women beat Japan 3-0 in Nagoya to win their first Asian Games badminton team title since 2014 — with a celebratory huddle that became a trending story of its own.
China's women's badminton team beat Japan 3-0 in the team final in Nagoya on Wednesday, reclaiming the Asian Games title they last held in 2014 — and the first thing they did with the winning point was hold on to each other. Footage of the squad charging into a group hug, then spinning in a circle on court, was trending on Weibo within the hour under a hashtag translating as "the team's first reaction after winning was to hug their teammates."
The tie took three hours and 45 minutes across three rubbers, and none of them was comfortable. First singles Wang Zhiyi dropped her opening game 14-21 to former world No. 1 Akane Yamaguchi before steadying herself through 21-19 and 21-17; the doubles pair of Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning ground out the second rubber 21-16, 25-23, saving the pressure points of a game that stayed level to the end; and Olympic champion Chen Yufei closed the tie 21-10, 21-11 over Tomoka Miyazaki in 40 minutes. The fourth and fifth rubbers were never played.
The result is China's 11th Asian Games women's team title in badminton, and its first since Incheon 2014 — a twelve-year gap that spanned two Games in which the trophy went elsewhere. It is also the first gold of the Nagoya badminton programme, won on Japanese home ground and against the country that took the title in between. The state-broadcaster clip of the circle celebration drew more than a thousand likes within hours.
The players' own commentary matched the moment. A post relayed by fans quoted Wang Zhiyi claiming, tongue-in-cheek, that she had finished "first in the race to hug Chen Yufei" — the dash from the court to the team huddle being, apparently, a competitive event of its own. The affection on display is the point of the trend: a squad that has waited twelve years to stand on this podium together, celebrating like it.
The win landed against the backdrop of a Games that has tested every visiting delegation's patience, from stranded teams at the airport to a wrongly played anthem — grievances Japan has deflected by blaming a French contractor and the Tokyo Olympic scandal. On court, at least, the hosts' problems were simpler: they did not take a single rubber. The individual events follow later in the week, and offer Japan an immediate chance at a different ending.