Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's singles Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's singles The badminton women's singles tournament at the 2012 Olympic Games in London took place from 28 July to 4 August at Wembley Arena. The draw was held on 23 July 2012. Forty-six players from 42 nations competed. In an all-Chinese final, Li Xuerui defeated reigning world number one Wang Yihan to win the gold medal. India's Saina Nehwal took bronze. For the first time, the preliminary stage consisted of 16 groups of either two or three players. Each played every other member of the group with the top players advancing to
Yang Yang (badminton) Wiranata in 1989. In 1988 he also won the Olympic exhibition event in Seoul (badminton became an official Olympic sport at the next games in Barcelona). In 1989 he added the venerable All-England Championships to his tally; thus, by twenty-five, he captured all the titles by which "greatness" in the sport is generally measured. As a member of China's golden badminton generation of the 1980s which included the almost equally brilliant singles stars Zhao Jianhua and Xiong Guobao, Yang Yang played an important role in making China "the" major world badminton superpower. His play was instrumental in China's consecutive Thomas