Uh oh. “Super Dan” aka Lin Dan (林丹) has gotten himself into hot water.
The Chinese internet blew up today (Thursday, 17th November) after a Weibo user calling himself “Detective Zhao” exposed the 2-time Olympic champion to be a cheating husband. News of his infidelity can’t come at a worse time as his wife, Xie Xingfang (謝杏芳), just gave birth to their first child a few days ago.
“Detective Zhao” posted paparazzi pictures and gifs of the badminton superstar with a “mystery woman” on popular Chinese microblogging website Weibo, claiming that they were spotted together in October. Xie Xingfang was still pregnant at that time.
It didn’t take long for the scandal to sweep Chinese social networking platforms, drawing tens of thousands of comments. Eagle-eyed netizens quickly identified the “mystery woman” as Zhao Yaqi, a model and actress, whom Lin Dan can be seen holding hands with in the photos.
The images included an intimate one of Lin Dan and Zhao Yaqi hugging in what looks like a hotel room.
As pictured above, Lin Dan’s hand can be seen on the model’s butt.
The post quickly became the top trending topic and had more than 200,000 reposts and 40,000 comments.
A mere few hours after the post spread like wildfire, the Chinese shuttler took to his own Weibo account to admit to the affair. At about 2pm today, Lin Dan wrote, “As a man, I shall seek no excuses to defend myself. My behaviour anyway has hurt feelings of my family and I hereby apologise to my family. Sorry!”
Neither Xie Xingfang nor Zhao Yaqi have commented on the above news.
Widely regarded as the greatest singles player of all time, Lin Dan’s illustrious career includes winning all 9 major titles in the badminton world: Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cup, Thomas Cup, Sudirman Cup, Super Series Masters Finals, All England Open, Asian Games, and Asian Championships. Formerly world #1, he’s now ranked 3rd after Datuk Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia and Chen Long aka “Junior Lin Dan” of China.
Lin Dan and Xie Xingfang were married in Guangzhou, China in December 2010 after 7 years of dating.
Sources: The Straits Times, South China Morning Post, Shanghai Daily / Featured image: South China Morning Post.
