After winning gold in the women’s badminton singles at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Ahn Se-young took a shot at the Korea Badminton Association. The 22-year-old wondered if the organization should be standing in the way of a young athlete overcoming adversity.

Ahn won the women’s badminton singles final at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Porte de la Chapelle stadium in France at 5:55 p.m. KST, defeating He Bingjiao (CHN) 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) to win the gold medal.

Ahn has now won gold at the Asian Games, World Championships, and Olympics. Ahn previously won the title at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou and the World Badminton Federation (BWF) World Championships in Copenhagen last August. With this win, she is one step closer to completing the Grand Slam (Olympic, Asian Games, World and Asian Championships), needing only to win the Asian Championships.

However, Ahn made a rather shocking statement at the post-match press conference: “The injury was more serious than I thought. I was very disappointed in the national team for being so complacent,” she said, adding, “I also thought that it might be a little difficult to continue with the national team after this moment.”

Ahn was unflinching, saying at the official press conference, “I don’t think leaving the national team means I can’t play at the Olympics. Singles and 안전놀이터 doubles are very different in badminton. I don’t think she should be disqualified. But our federation is blocking everything. In the name of freedom, there is a lot of negligence,” he said.

In fact, Ahn was not 100 percent for the Games. She suffered a knee injury during her final match against Chen Yufei at the Hangzhou Asian Games last year. Ahn overpowered Chen Yufei physically in the final to win the gold medal, but she had to focus on injury management leading up to the Games.

According to Ahn’s interview, the Badminton Association did not take her injury seriously, which may have contributed to its severity. Given that Ahn is the world No. 1 in women’s singles and a dominant player, managing her injury was of utmost importance, and the organization failed to do so.

Since Ahn was the closest to winning an Olympic gold medal on the team and actually won it, common sense would dictate that she should have gotten the most support from the federation. However, Ahn’s interview suggests that the federation shook her down.

Instead of helping the 22-year-old make history, the Korea Badminton Association seems to be standing in the way.