Bao Chunlai

Bao Chunlai was born in Changsa, Hunan to a wage earner parents. The wages earned by his father who worked in an office and his factory worker mother was barely enough to support him and his two siblings, a brother and a sister. He was an active boy and a playful one too, often played outdoor and created mess in the house.

When he was 8, a badminton coach from a sports school was scouting for new talents. His father decided to send him to the school so that he would have something useful to do instead of playing all the time. Due to his active personality and agility, he was selected to join the school to be trained in badminton. Everyday, his mother would worked during her noon break in the factory so that she would be allowed longer break during tea break. At 3.00pm everyday, his mother would send Bao to the sports school and picked him up at 6.00pm after her factory work.

Eventhough still a young boy then, the training he underwent at the training school was tough. One day, his mother hid herself to watch her son's training regime and was shocked to see how the training was conducted. The coach would passed him the shuttlecock at rapid speed, around 30 per minute and when he stumbled and fell , the coach did not stop at all but continued to do so. During that session, after watching how his son fell and was crying but still instructed to continue training, his mother couldn't bear to watch anymore and left the school. His mother continued to send him to school daily for 4 years.

Bao improved tremendously and in the end of 1994, he was selected to play for Hunan provincial team. Being part of the team, he had to stay at the provincial sports school, only allowed home on Saturdays and Sundays. On Saturdays when he was home, his strict parents arranged him to learn English and calligraphy and on Sundays, he would practice for a while in the morning before returned to the school in the evening.

As he was still a normal boy, he soon got bored with his monotomous daily routines and fell in love with video games. One night, he sneaked out from his room at 12 midning to play video games but was caught by the hostel warden who then grabbed him back into his room. The agitated Bao grumbled that he never had time to play like other kids even during weekends when he was at home. His parents came to know about this and was sad. They then decided to discontinue his calligraphy classes eventhough he was good at it and had won several calligraph competitions.

His game continued to progress rapidly. After winning numerous provincial competitions, he was selected to join the national team in 2000. He played his first international game at the World Youth Championship in Guangzhou in December the same year and won the boys singles title. A few months later, he was promoted to senior team and played his first competiton as a senior at the Danish Open in 2001 and went on to win the men's singles title. After winning this competition, his father sent him text message from China to remind him not to be arrogant and complacent as was still a long way for him to go. He read that message several time and replied his father that he would always remember the "reminder".

His father watched all his games on television so that he could give instance response to his son after each game. He would congratulate him each time he won and gave him encouragement and console him each time he lost. His father also videotaped all the games and handed over to him so that he could watch and learn his mistakes and his opponents to improve his game.

Since his first international game in Denmark, he has won numerous titles around the world but the two most major titles, the World Championship and All England Championship still eluded him. Currently he is ranked 8 in the world in the men's singles category.