Today Gary asked me if I’m going to the badminton competition this weekend. I was like “What badminton competition?!”
Then it hit me, there’s a competition going on and I didn’t about it. At first, I thought it was just the US Open but it turned out it’s the IBF World Championships. I had to know who was playing.. I had a feeling it was going to be big, but I didn’t know how big it was going to be.
The top 3 mens players are going to there, which means that Peter Gade (Den) is playing!!
OMG I was so psyched when I found out he’s playing! Jesse, Joyce, Juno, and Jan can all vouch for that. I’ve been watching this guy since high school, and it’s just amazing how long he’s survived. He was originally ranked no. 1 for the longest time till he had a knee injury around 2001. From then he dropped out of the scene but made his comeback the following year at the 2002 US Open here in Orange, which I’m glad to say he won. Fortunately, I managed to catch the 2002 US Open from day 1. It was definitely great since the finals were dominated with Danes, between Peter Gade and Peter Rasmussen. It was such a special occassion because it’s so rare to find the top players in the world playing competing in the US. The fact that they were there made the US Open really special. I don’t think Peter Gade competed in the 2004 event. It was also such an informal event that I managed to fraternise with Gade and Rasmussen, both of whom were very nice people. Unfortunately, Peter Rasmussen isn’t attending the World Championships because he retired February this year due to injuries.
Anyway Peter Gade still had a lot to overcome after the US Open. I don’t think he won any major tourneys after the US Open and only reached the quarter finals in Athens last year. Honestly, I thought there was no way in hell that he could make it back after Athens so I ended up forgetting about this guy. It doesn’t help that there’s hardly a badminton televised on TV over here. It was only today, after I checked the rankings, that I found out he’s now 3rd in the world! You just don’t see a lot of comebacks in sports.. but this guy managed to do it and I admire him more doing so.
Without a doubt I knew I had to go to the World Championships… I even managed to get Juno to come along! C’mon Peter is going to be there and the last time I was at competition was at 2 years ago. I was so desperate to get good seats that I decided to take an hour off from work so that I could drive up to the Arrowhead Pond to get tickets. I wanna thank my boss, Carl, who was really cool about it. Sure I could have used TicketMaster but I’m cheap. C’mon TicketMaster adds on an extra $14 to the original ticket price.
When I got to Arrowhead Pond, I ran into problems with parking. It’s not that there wasn’t enough space, but it’s cause I didn’t have any cash with me to get into the lot! It took a lot of begging but I managed to get the parking attendant to take my phone as collateral. phew! It was such a nice feeling to be just in the parking lot. From there you could see a couple of kids playing badminton. Anyway, I went straight for the ticket booth and got tickets for Juno and me.
The ticket says Section 220, Row K, Seat 8 for Sunday, which is when the finals are going to be held. It’s not bad.. it’s still close to centre court. If I wanted anything better, I’d have to get VIP tickets which cost around $200. Forget that shit!
Actually I’m taking a gamble by getting tickets for only the finals, since there’s a possibility Peter might not make it to the finals! I’m sorry but I’m being a realisitc here. Basically Juno and I are sure that Peter is going to challenge the World #1 Lin Dan in the semis. Thing is… semis are on Saturday. FFFUUUCCK!! I’m going nuts right now. If Peter, loses then shit… I’ll miss my opportunity to see him again. But it’s not a total loss because most likely the finals will be between Lin Dan and world #2 Kenneth Jonassen (Den). Nevertheless, I’m going to be praying a lot for Peter! See if he makes it to the finals then it’s going to be a another Danish dominated event! Jeg er såååååååå fucking ophidset!!