Paris Olympics: rival badminton stars Chiharu Shida and Tan Ning share animated friendship
- The duo, who faced each other in the Games’ women’s doubles semi-final, have posed for playful photos in which they mimic cartoon characters
Chiharu Shida, dubbed Japan’s “badminton goddess”, has posted photos with Chinese rival Tan Ning on her Instagram story, showing that on-court competitors can be off-court friends.
The duo, who faced each other in the Games’ women’s doubles badminton semi-final, have posed for a series of playful photos in which they mimic cartoon characters Judy and Nick from Zootopia, as well as My Melody and Kuromi – two rabbit-like characters from Japanese animation.
“I saw a lot of these on Chinese social media platforms, so I want to try and have asked her to pose with me,” the 27-year-old Japanese shuttler wrote under the photo of the Japanese rabbit character.
“Although we yelled at each other on court, we are close to each other outside the court. She is a very interesting and cute kid.”
For the other set, Shida wrote: “We couldn’t help but laugh. We reshot it many times. Memories.”
Tan shared the two stories on her Instagram with the caption “you [are] cute more than me”. (original quote from Tan in English)
Tan, together with teammate Liu Shengshu, beat Shida and Nami Matsuyama 2-0 to reach the final, where they lost to No 1 seed and compatriots Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan.
