China, with Lin Dan in the ascendancy, won three titles and Indonesia two as the World badminton championships drew to a noisy close on Sunday.
China, with Lin Dan in the ascendancy, won three titles and Indonesia two as the World badminton championships drew to a noisy close on Sunday.
A year ago in Madrid the Chinese had claimed four gold medals but this time round they missed out on the men's doubles after the defeat earlier in the week of defending champions Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng.
On Sunday, Lin was at the peak of his powers to retain his men's singles crown, fifth seed Zhu Lin scored a memorable win in the women's singles and in the women's doubles Yang Wei and Zhang Jewen won an all-Chinese affair.
China first got on the board when Zhu beat Hong Kong's sixth seeded Chen Wang 21-8 21-12 in the women's event, avenging Wang's semifinal defeat of Chinese top seed Zhang Ning.
Lin, appearing in the final for a third successive year, controlled afairs against Indonesian ninth seed Sony Dwi Kuncoro in the first game but had to battle all the way in the second to score a 21-11 22-20 victory.
Sony trailed 12-7 in the second but fought back to lead 19-17 only for Lin to produce two brilliant smashes and a fine piece of net play to avert the crisis and keep his crown.
The Chinese was emulating boyhood hero Yang Yang, the only other man to win successive singles world titles, back in the late 1980s.
Lin told a media conference: "He's been my idol since I was a boy and I worked hard to follow in his footsteps."
For Indonesia, second seeds Nova Widianto and Lilyana Natsir beat China’s top seeds Zheng Bo and Gao Ling 21-16 21-14 in the mixed doubles.
The men's doubles went to Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan, 21-19 21-19 winners over South Koreans Jung Jae-sung and Lee Young-dae.
The two titles for Indonesia and Sony's bold showing against Lin may amount to some compensation for the early exit in the men's singles Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat.
Hosts Malaysia, though, can take little comfort having failed yet again to win any title. They remain without a world crown in the 30-year history of the event.
Results (prefix denotes seedings):
