Olympic badminton champion Zheng to retire from international competition

China's Olympic mixed doubles badminton gold medalist Zheng Siwei announced that he will retire from international competition on Friday. Next month's BWF World Tour Finals in Hangzhou will be his "last dance".

"Many people expected me to play at least until the Los Angeles Olympics, or even longer. If there were any questions about our competitiveness, we just won the Olympic gold and rank among the top in the world rankings. As for why I suddenly want to stop playing, my answer is, this is my life plan," the 27-year-old wrote on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

Zheng mentioned returning to his family as one of the most important reasons for his decision: "My life goals are now focussed on my family and career. Everyone knows that I married relatively early, and now I've just had a second baby, so I want to return to the family."

After claiming silver at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, Zheng and his partner Huang Yaqiong won mixed doubles gold at the Paris Olympics, finishing the tournament with a perfect 6-0 record, and not losing a single set.

"Along the way, we constantly made breakthroughs and broke records. We faced challenges and doubts, but we never stopped and we finally won a Grand Slam," wrote Zheng.

Zheng added that he chose the BWF World Tour Finals as his farewell event because the host city of Hangzhou is where his professional career began.

The season-ending BWF World Tour tournament will be held from December 11 to 15.