Lin Dan

Lin Dan is a professional badminton player from China who is considered to be the greatest badminton player of all time. Rightly dubbed \'Super Dan\' by fans, he is a two-time Olympic champion, four-time world champion and five-time All England champion. Lin, by the age of 28, had become the first and only player to have completed the \"Super Grand Slam\", having won all nine major titles in world badminton: Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cup, Thomas Cup, Sudirman Cup, Super Series Masters Finals, All England Open, Asian Games, and Asia Championships. He is also the first men\'s singles player to retain the Olympic gold medal by winning in 2008 and defending his title in 2012. Lin picked up his badminton racquet at the age of five and has been part of China\'s national badminton team since he was 18. Lin made his international debut in 2001 at the Asian Badminton Championships. In 2002, Lin took his first title along with the Chinese squad at the Korea Open. Lin made his debut in the World Championships at Birmingham, England in 2003, and finished runner-up at the German Open the same year. 2004 started with a bang for Lin as he earned the BWF\'s number one world ranking for the first time in February. The following year Lin retained his number one world ranking, winning his second German and Hong Kong Open titles, as well as the Japan Open, China Masters, the World Cup tournament and the Sudirman Cup. He kept up his track record in 2006 by winning six individual titles - All England Open, Chinese Taipei Open, Macau Open, Hong Kong Open, Japan Open and his first World title. Lin won the German Open, All England Open, became the China Masters champion and extended his reign as the world champion - all in 2007. In 2008, he won his first Swiss Open, the Thailand Open and the highest highest honour of the year - an Olympic gold. Lin won his first ever Asian Games gold medal in November 2010, thus becoming the first player to win all of the present major titles available to Asians in badminton, both individual and national. The following year, he won the first ever million-dollar badminton tournament, the Korea Open, and then the German Open. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, Lin retained the Olympic title by defeating his rival Lee Chong Wei by two points.