[Yonhap News Photo]
After guiding Japan to its first Olympic badminton gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the team's South Korean-born coach, Park Joo-bong, said it's "only the beginning."
Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi captured the women's doubles gold medal Thursday, defeating Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl of Denmark 2-1 (18-21, 21-9, 21-19). In the decisive third game, the No. 1-ranked team from Japan rallied from a 19-16 deficit to clinch the country's first Olympic badminton gold.
Park, who has been coaching Japan since 2004, said while he was hoping for good results, he wasn't entirely convinced his athletes were ready to win a gold this year. Both Matsutomo, 24, and Takahashi, 26, were making their Olympic debuts.
"I knew there was a possibility," he said. "I wanted them to gain experience here and try to win gold four years later at the Tokyo Olympics. But they did a great job here. This gold medal came four years ahead of time."
Park is best remembered among South Koreans for winning the men's doubles gold medal in 1992, and then the mixed doubles silver in 1996. He boasts two world titles in the men's doubles and three more in the mixed doubles. And his first gold as a coach with Japan has been 12 years in the making.
(Yonhap)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
