Lee Hyun-il (; born 17 April 1980) is a former

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

player from

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

. He is a former

World The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

and Asian Championships bronze medalist, and was part of South Korean team that won the 2003 Sudirman Cup as well the gold medals at the 2002 and 2014 Asian Games.

Career

2002 Asian Games

Lee competed in the 2002 Asian Games where he showed signs of promise as an ace singles player for team Korea. In the men's team event, Lee dominated the opponents he faced in the tourney, completing all three matches less than 30 minutes and allowing only seven points in the semifinals and eight in the final. Team Korea eventually won their first men's team gold medal since 1986 when Park Joo-bong and Kim Moon-soo led the team.

2003 Sudirman Cup

At the 2003 Sudirman Cup held in

Eindhoven Eindhoven ( ; ) is a city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, located in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant, of which it is the largest municipality, and is also locat ...

, the Netherlands, Lee helped his team to win its third Sudirman Cup title, winning all three singles matches. Though many great doubles players from South Korea had won numerous international competitions, team Korea had always struggled to win the Thomas and Sudirman Cup competitions due to the lack of top men's singles players. However, Lee, the winner of the 2003 Swiss Open, showed spectacular performances through the Sudirman Cup tournament, not dropping a single set. In the semifinal, Lee defeated 2001 World Championship runner-up and 2001 All England Open semifinalist Peter Gade 2-0, which led his team to a 3-2 victory over Denmark. Lee won another 2-0 upset victory over world number one ranked Chen Hong in game 1 of the South Korea's final team event against China.

2004 Olympics

Lee competed in the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

, which was his first Olympic appearance. Lee easily defeated Stuart Brehaut of Australia in the first round. However, he was surprisingly eliminated in the second round by Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand.

2006

At the

2006 IBF World Championships The 2006 IBF World Championships, the 15th tournament of the World Badminton Championships, was held in Madrid, Spain, Madrid, the capital of Spain, from September 18 to 24, 2006. Host city selection Aarhus (Denmark) and Madrid (Spain) were the ...

held in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Spain, Lee captured his first World Championship medal in the men's singles event. He defeated Chetan Anand, Jan Fröhlich, Eric Pang and Chen Jin before losing to Bao Chunlai of China in the semifinals.

2008 Olympics

In 2008, he defeated top rank players Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei in the Korea Open. He participated in the Beijing Olympics, where he reached the semi-finals before being defeated by world number one, Lee Chong Wei from Malaysia, and then being beaten by Chen Jin of China in the bronze-medal playoff.

Retirement and comeback

After the 2008 Olympics, Lee announced his retirement from international badminton and only competed in national competitions. However, in April 2010 he came out of retirement after much persuasion from the coach and teammates to fill the void of singles players in the Korean national squad. In May 2010, Lee participated in the 2010 Thomas Cup and played in two singles matches.

2012 Summer Olympics

Lee lost to Chinese Chen Long in the badminton bronze-medal playoff on 5 August 2012.

2019

Lee who joined the Miryang City Hall team since 2018, decided to retire from the team on 22 November 2019.

Achievements

World Championships

''Men's singles''

Asian Games

''Men's singles''

Asian Championships

''Men's singles''

Asian Junior Championships

''Boys' singles''

BWF World Tour (1 title)

The BWF World Tour, announced on 19 March 2017 and implemented in 2018, is a series of elite badminton tournaments, sanctioned by

Badminton World Federation The Badminton World Federation, aka BWF, is the international governing body for the sport of badminton approved by the International Olympic Committee. It was founded on 5 July 1934 as the International Badminton Federation with nine member ...

(BWF). The BWF World Tour are divided into six levels, namely World Tour Finals, Super 1000, Super 750, Super 500, Super 300 (part of the HSBC World Tour), and the BWF Tour Super 100. ''Men's singles''

BWF Superseries (1 title, 3 runners-up)

The BWF Superseries, launched on 14 December 2006 and implemented in 2007, is a series of elite badminton tournaments, sanctioned by

(BWF). BWF Superseries has two level such as Superseries and Superseries Premier. A season of Superseries features twelve tournaments around the world, which introduced since 2011, with successful players invited to the Superseries Finals held at the year end. ''Men's singles'' : BWF Superseries Finals tournament : BWF Superseries Premier tournament : BWF Superseries tournament

BWF Grand Prix (18 titles, 11 runners-up)

The BWF Grand Prix had two levels, the BWF Grand Prix and Grand Prix Gold. It was a series of badminton tournaments sanctioned by the

(BWF) which was held from 2007 to 2017. The World Badminton Grand Prix has been sanctioned by the International Badminton Federation from 1983 to 2006. ''Men's singles'' : BWF Grand Prix Gold tournament : BWF & IBF Grand Prix tournament

BWF International Challenge/Series (5 titles, 3 runners-up)

''Men's singles'' : BWF International Challenge tournament : BWF International Series tournament

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Hyun-il 1980 births Living people Badminton players from Seoul South Korean male badminton players Badminton players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Badminton players at the 2008 Summer Olympics Badminton players at the 2012 Summer Olympics Olympic badminton players for South Korea Badminton players at the 2002 Asian Games Badminton players at the 2006 Asian Games Badminton players at the 2010 Asian Games Badminton players at the 2014 Asian Games Asian Games gold medalists for South Korea Asian Games silver medalists for South Korea Asian Games bronze medalists for South Korea Asian Games medalists in badminton Medalists at the 2002 Asian Games Medalists at the 2006 Asian Games Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games Medalists at the 2014 Asian Games World No. 1 badminton players 21st-century South Korean sportsmen