Tokyo, the summit reached
On the evening of 2 August 2021, Viktor Axelsen stood at the centre of Court 1 at the Musashino Forest Sport Plaza and let a lifetime of intent settle into a single result. The No. 4 seed made light work of the No. 6 seed, winning 21-15, 21-12 in 51 minutes before breaking down in tears at his achievement. The opponent across the net was Chen Long, the defending champion, the man Axelsen had chased for years. This time the Dane did not blink.
He set the terms from the first serve. Axelsen took control early and never loosened his grip in a relentless performance. The first game went his way at 21-15. The second was heavier still, a 21-12 procession that left little room for reply. Axelsen, who won bronze at the 2016 Rio Games, was aggressive from the start and overwhelmed Chen in the second. When the final shuttle from Chen drifted long, the composure broke. He held his nerve with the prize in sight, then broke into disbelieving sobs when Chen hit the final shot long — a decisive edge given that Chen was bidding to emulate Lin Dan by retaining the title.
The margin carried history. Axelsen is only the second non-Asian winner of the title, after fellow Dane Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen at Atlanta 1996, and the first non-Asian to win more than one Games medal. Hoyer-Larsen, now president of world badminton, sat in the arena to watch the achievement matched. Twenty-five years separated the two Danish champions.
