India’s Lakshya Sen ended his Paris 2024 campaign on a heartbreaking note after losing the Bronze medal match to Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia.
Lakshya Sen had earlier created history by becoming the first male shuttler to reach the final four of the Olympics in the men’s singles competition. The youngster played the entire match with his right elbow heavily taped.
Sen took the first game 21-13 against Lee Zii Jia. However the Malaysian fought back to win the second game 16-12. The final game saw the Indian trailing the Malaysian by 5 points at the break.
Lakshya Sen’s Paris 2024 journey
Looking back at Lakshya’s Paris Olympics 2024 campaign, the 22-year-old from Almora beat the likes of Jonatan Christie, HS Prannoy and Chou Tien-Chen to make it to the semi-final.
However, the young shuttler lost to defending champion Viktor Axelsen in two games (22-20, 21-14) to see his dream of winning the gold medal getting crushed.
His loss means that it would be the first time in 12 years that India will return without a badminton medal from the Olympics.
Sen is only the third Indian male shuttler after Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth to play in the knockouts at the Summer Games. Kashyap and Srikanth had reached the quarters of the London and Rio Olympics in 2012 and 2016 respectively.
