Taufik Hidayat

Rackets, nets, shuttlecocks, smash, netting, drop shoot, these all remind me of one of the most favorable sports in Indonesia, Badminton. Talking about badminton, Indonesia has already been known in the world because Indonesia has a lot of good players. One of them is Taufik Hidayat, young player with the fantastic results. I decided that Taufik Hidayat is my hero. My hero is someone who can participate in the world competition and get good results. People can put their expectations upon his shoulder.

Taufik was born in Bandung, West Java on August 10th 1981. He likes badminton better than soccer, which is his hobby, once he said that badminton was more artistic than soccer. His biggest obsession is to join at the Olympiad team. He considers that the Olympiad game is very important for him because it is the top of career for badminton player. And the result of his spirit is now he becomes one of the best single player in the world. Taufik joined the Pelatnas for the first time in 1996. Three years later, after he get the training by his coach, Mulyono and Joko Suprianto, the results is now he has a lot of achievements, like Brunei Open 1998, semifinalist of Asia Championship 1998, semifinalist of Indonesia Open 1998, All England finalist in 1999, semifinalist of Sudirman Cup group and Sea Games individual and group. In the year 1999, he stayed at the third position in the world rank after Sun Jun and Peter Gade. Taufik considered that the most solid opponents for that time was Sun Jun from China, and the most solid opponents team came from Denmark, China and Malaysia.

In the year 2004 his dream came true by winning the gold medal in the 2004 Athens Olympiad. He is the seventh player or the second Indonesian single player who ever got the Olympic gold medal. The International Badminton Federation (IBF) unveiled that Indonesia's Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat as the recipient of its "Eddy Choong Player of the Year" award for 2004. The gold medalist from the Athens games is the seventh and only the second men's singles player for this prestigious prize, which is named after Malaysian badminton legend Eddy Choong who dominated European badminton events in the 1950s and was part of Malaysia's 1955 Thomas Cup winning squad.

The 23-year-old Hidayat was unseeded for his Olympic campaign in August last year. He dropped only one game in his five matches before claiming the Olympic title over South Korea's Shon Seung Mo, to maintain Indonesia's Olympic gold medal winning tradition. Prior to that, Hidayat clinched the second Asian championship title of his career in April, beating two-time defending champion Sony Dwi Kuncoro. He also played a key part in Indonesia's Thomas Cup campaign in May, notching up three points for his country from the four matches he played in. To cap off a successful year, Hidayat was victorious at the Indonesia Open in December, winning a fifth title at his home Grand Prix event since 1999.

Hidayat joined Danes Peter Gade (1998) and Camilla Martin (1999),Indonesia's Candra Wijaya (2000), China's Gao Ling (2001) and South Korea's Kim Dong Moon (2002) -- who was also the joint recipient of the 2003 prize with Ra Kyung Min -- in the esteemed list of winners of the award. His hope for badminton is that he can carry the name of Indonesia to the world. What makes him special is, in his young age he can compete with the other professional player from all over the world, and wins. He spends his young age at National training center and he has to stop his hobby, playing football. Along with his opportunity to play with all kind of player’s game type, he can beat them easily because he already knows how to find the player’s weakness from the game type that they use.