All posts tagged: Lee Yong-dae update

Lee Yong-dae: Badminton’s K-Drama icon who ruled the world turns master coach with effortless grace | Badminton News

Lee Yong-dae: Badminton’s K-Drama icon who ruled the world turns master coach with effortless grace | Badminton News

The runway looks. Sharp suits, laser-lawn-mowed cheekbones, million dollar smile, perfect mop of hair. And a game to die for, but wake up immediately from and swoon and die again. Lee Yong-dae, now 36, was the K-Pop and K-drama superstar aesthetic rolled into one, well before Korean mass-scale entertainment blazed through all of East Asia, and then the rest of the world. The LYD mania of 2008-2018 is vaguely imaginable now that BTS and Pinnochio/Crash Landing on You can stream easily on mobiles, and we have a measure of how hysterical K-popularity can get. But Yong-dae just played badminton. Though he played it damn well – the Maldini defense of shuttle you would pay to watch. The Euro step of Manu Ginobili at a badminton net that you would hold your breath for. His looks obviously got the squeals, but the doubles game was so refined and intricate, a faceless blur of a silhouette, would’ve told you it was the 2008 mixed doubles Olympic champion and 2012 men’s bronze medallist on court. And then he …