Datuk Lee Chong Wei (pinyin: Lǐ Zōngwěi; born October 21, 1982 in Georgetown, Penang) is a professional badminton player from Malaysia who resides in Bukit Mertajam.Lee won the silver medal in the 2008 Olympic Games, thus becoming the first Malaysian to reach the final of the men's singles event and ending Malaysia's Olympic medal drought since the 1996 Games. This achievement also earned him the title Datuk, and a description by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak as a national hero.
As a singles player, Lee was ranked first worldwide on August 21, 2008.He is the third Malaysian men's singles shuttler after Rashid Sidek and Roslin Hashim to achieve such a ranking (since official rankings were first kept in the 1980s), and is the only Malaysian shuttler to hold the ranking for more than two weeks.
Despite his status among the world's elite, Lee has as failed to capture several of badminton's biggest titles, including the Olympic Games, the World Championships and the Asian Games. This deficiency is often contrasted by the Chinese media to the achievements of Lee's rival Lin Dan, who has won all of badminton's major titles at least once. Lee has thus been described as the "weakest world number one" source : wikipedia. read more on wikipedia.
