Former Olympic champion takes over badminton

Zhang Jun, China's former Olympic badminton mixed doubles champion, was appointed as chairman of the country's badminton association.

Zhang, 42, twice Olympic champion in 2000 and 2004 and coach staff of the nation's doubles team since retirement in 2007, took reign of the team in 2017 after the underperformance of China's badminton at the 2016 Rio Olympics. The doubles specialty was selected as vice-chairman of the association in the sport's reshuffle in early 2018.

Zhang said the top priority of the association was the 2020 Tokyo Olympics where the team is set to sweep all the five golds to retain China's dominance of the sport at world tournaments.

Another job is to further grow the sport at grassroots levels especially in schools to tap more potential national players, Zhang said on a national conference of the association after selection.

China took only the men's singles and doubles gold in Rio and remained absent from top podium although it dominated or even swept all titles at major events.