Odense: Back in 2010, 22-year-old Jan Jorgensen defeated the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics champion – Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia, 21-19, 21-19 to win the Denmark Super Series.
Dressed in a black jersey, the young Jorgensen stepped on the podium, holding the Denmark Open trophy, looking to have a promising future ahead of him in international badminton.
Fast forward to last Friday, the 32-year-old Jorgensen played his last men’s singles international tournament of his career. Jorgensen could not stop compatriot Anders Antonsen, losing the Denmark Open quarter-finals to the No. 3 seed Antonsen 12-21, 10-21 in 40 minutes.
An emotional Jorgensen had tears in his eyes as he bid farewell to badminton at the Denmark Open.
Despite the loss, he has not hung up his racket just yet.
He still has to complete the season for the Vendsyssel Elite Badminton Club in the Denmark badminton league, if he could find his motivation and his physical fitness would allow him to do so.
“Our goal is to at least qualify for the semi-final. Jan Jorgensen and our badminton club are both hoping to eventually win the title in April,” said press manager for Vendsyssel Elite Badminton, Michael Frederiksen.
Jorgensen has been hampered by his heel injury since 2017, he said that it’s so painful and he sometimes could hardly get up to get a cup of coffee.
“I thought of what could happen after I recovered from the injury, but the injury was so serious that I actually could not play for a year,” said Jorgensen to Denmark media.
Before the heel injury, he was plagued with a hip injury, and doctors had advised him to have surgery back in 2016. But he refused to undergo surgery because he didn’t want to miss the Thomas Cup, Olympics, China Open, and the season finale.
Big names in badminton including Lee Chong Wei, Lin Dan, Peter Gade, Paul Erik Hoyer Larsen, and Kidambi Srikanth have sent in happy retirement wishes to Jorgensen after he completed the 2020 Denmark Open quarter-final.
