The Figure Of The Most All England Title Winners Turns Out To Be From Indonesia, Who Is He?

Illustration of the All England tournament (Mahmur Marananti/Pixabay)

YOGYAKARTA The 2023 All England Tournament will soon be staged. The world's most prestigious badminton championship will be held in Birmingham, England on March 14-19. Indonesia is one of the countries to be reckoned with in the championship. History records that the most All England titles are from Indonesia. So, who is the badminton player?

The figure who won the All England title was Rudy Hartono Kurniawan. He was one of Indonesia's best badminton players in the 70s era.

The man who was born in Surabaya, August 18, 1949, successfully won 8 titles in the All England championship.

In detail, 7 All England titles were won in a row in 1968-1974, and the last title was won in 1976 after beating compatriot Liem Swie King in the final.

To date, no world badminton player has managed to surpass Rudy Hartono's success in the All England tournament.

One of the badminton players who almost surpassed Rudy Hartono's achievement was Lin Dan. The Chinese badminton legend, who hung up his racket in 2020, has recorded six All England titles throughout his career.

In addition to posting brilliant achievements at All England, Rudy also won other prestigious titles, such as World Championships in 1980, and successfully led Indonesia to win 4 Thomas Cups in 1970, 1973, 1976 and 1979. For his achievements, Rudy Hartono received the BWF award in 1997.

For this achievement, Rudy Hartono's name was then immortalized in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1982.

In addition, Rudy has also been named one of the Asian Heroes categories of Time Magazine's Athletes & Explorers.

The Most Memorable All England Title

Rudy Hartono won the first All England title in 1968. At that time, he arrested Malaysia's mainstay badminton player, Tan Aik Huang with a score of 15-2, 15-9.

In the March 13th edition of Kompas, 199i, Rudy said that the first title was the most memorable besides the seventh All England title.

The reason was because at that time, he and a number of other Indonesian badminton athletes almost failed to leave for England to participate in the 1968 All England.

At that time, PBSI planned not to field athletes to the tournament. This is a form of PBSI's protest against the decision of the International Badminton Federation (IBF) which stated that Indonesia lost WO in the Thomas Cup event in Jakarta.

The decision had disappointed Rudy. The reason is, he has prepared himself with hard training. In addition, Rudy also wants to follow in the footsteps of his senior, Tan Joe Hok, who became the men's singles champion in the All England tournament.

In order to play in All England, Rudy and his colleagues, namely Minarni, Retno Kustiyah, Mulyadi and Darmadi lobbied PBSI.

As a result, Rudy's wish was granted. They went to London and won the All England title.

For the seventh All England title that Rudy won, it was no less memorable. This is because Rudy Hartono became the first player to win seven titles in a row. This record is believed to be difficult for any player to pass, until the end.

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