Rio 2016: Yorkshire's Marcus Ellis misses out on gold medal chance

Great Britain's Chris Langridge (right) and Marcus Ellis take on China's HF Fu and N Zhang during the men's badminton quarter finals.

The duo were downed by the Chinese pair of Nan Zhang and Haifeng Fu 21-18, 21-14 in under an hour in Riocentro.

But they will have to pick themselves up again quickly as they go again in the bronze medal match on Thursday – again against a Chinese pair of Biao Chai and Wei Hong.

The duo are looking to become badminton’s first Olympic medallists since Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms took silver in Athens in the mixed doubles.

And Ellis admits he and his partner will need to get over their disappointment, and fast, if they are to achieve their dream of making the podium.

“It is quite difficult, usually when you have lost you’re out of the competition,” he said.

“To regroup and get back on the horse, so to speak, is quite strange but I am still really positive.

“We didn’t perform to how we wanted to today but they are a world-class pair. When you get to this point, you really feel like you can win this thing.

“But in the next match we have not played that pair before, which is something we have got to be excited about. Playing for a bronze medal is still a great achievement and I am still really excited and motivated to go out there and do well.”

Langridge and Ellis have been vocal about their hopes to inspire the next generation of badminton players.

And Langridge knows that a medal match at a Games is the best stage of all to show the UK what their sport is all about.

“I really want people to start playing, people to just go down their local club and have a game even if they are not going to go professional,” he said.

“Badminton is the fastest sport in the world, it’s not Formula 1, the lad we played today (Fu) hits the shuttlecock at over 400km/h. No wonder we struggled to get it back.

“Until people actually watch it they can’t understand.

“But we are in a semi-final, we still have the chance to play for bronze medal and for GB badminton this is big and for us its massive.

“I want to make badminton in Britain big – I want more people to see it and it’s a dream for me and Marcus – we really, really want to win a medal. We will give everything we can.”

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