BWF World Championships 2026: Badminton’s giant killer Kevin Cordón still chasing the impossible

At 39, Kevin Cordón – who is into the 23rd year of his international career – is the inveterate journeyman of world badminton.  | Photo Credit: AP

On Sunday morning, at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Stadium, a day before the start of the BWF World Championships, competitors hurriedly go through their designated half-hour-long practice sessions. Right after his slot, Kevin Cordón of Guatemala finds an open space on an adjacent court, befriends the players already training there and continues to practice just a bit more.

“Just trying to get as much time on the court as possible,” Cordón tells Sportstar with a smile later.

You can understand why Cordón wants to make the most of his time in India. The journey from Guatemala to India has taken him a day and a half. It’s involved flights from his tiny Central American nation, through Houston, then New York and Dubai before he finally reached Delhi for the World Championships.

Cordón is travelling without his coach. The economics simply do not work. A flight from Guatemala to India alone would cost about $2,000. Add hotels, food and other expenses, and bringing a coach – let alone a physio – to an international tournament becomes a luxury.

For Cordón, this is not an unusual problem but a fact of his career. It’s also something he’s done probably longer than anyone on the international circuit. At 39, the Guatemalan – who is into the 23rd year of his international career – is the inveterate journeyman of world badminton. He’s the only player in New Delhi who was part of the tournament the last time the World Championships were held in India back in 2009 in Hyderabad.

His World Championships debut was forgettable: he lost in the opening round to Germany’s Marc Zwiebler. He is looking to make happier memories this time. “Things are different. I’ve got less hair than I had once! But I’m happy to be back in India. I didn’t think I would still be playing after all these years and that I’d still be playing this level of tournaments. I hope I do better than I did then,” he says.

“I really want to compete at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. I really want to be the first singles player to compete in six Olympics. It’s a real goal for me,” says Kevin Cordón. | Photo Credit: Jonathan Selvaraj

That modest ambition, however, disguises a career that has taken Cordón far beyond anything he imagined as a child in Guatemala. He did not even start as a badminton player. Football was his first love. He wanted to play it for years before, at 15, he made a decision that would change his life. “I decided that I wanted to go to the Olympics and at that time, I felt that badminton was my best chance!”

It’s worked out better than he might have ever hoped for. He qualified for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and has since competed at five Games. His longevity is even more remarkable when viewed against the circumstances in which he has had to build his career.

Badminton is not a major sport in Guatemala. Football is. Facilities are limited. So are funds and competition. International travel is expensive. Cordón receives a certain amount of money each year from Guatemala’s Olympic committee and government, but he has to stretch that money through the year.

That means choosing tournaments carefully. For instance, between the 2024 Olympics and the 2026 Worlds, Cordón has played 19 tournaments – all of them in the Americas. He’s had to miss World Championships not because he hasn’t qualified but because he didn’t have the funds to travel. “I can’t travel to Asia or Europe because it’s just too expensive,” he says. “I prefer to play three or four tournaments in South America instead.”

Even at home, his preparation is far removed from what the world’s elite badminton players take for granted. “I don’t have any sparring partners or any facilities in Guatemala,” he says. “I only have my coach. Sometimes my coach is my sparring partner!” he says.

The consequence is that Cordón rarely gets to play the world’s best players during the regular season. The World Championships and Olympics are opportunities to test himself against opponents he otherwise might see only on television. Draws like the one he has in New Delhi, where (should he get past Mark Alcala of the USA in round 1) he could play Worlds bronze medallist Victor Lai in round 2, aren’t seen with dismay but are looked forward to.

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“A lot of players on the circuit get the opportunity to play top players frequently,” he says. “But for someone like me, the only real chance I get to meet players like this is at the World Championships or the Olympics.”

Different worlds

That attitude is useful when your career is spent moving between two very different worlds. “It’s funny because for most of the year I’ll be playing some really small tournaments and then suddenly I’ll be playing at the World Championships or Olympics. It’s a big difference in levels,” he says.

All this makes his most famous victory at a World Championships even more extraordinary. Back in 2011, Cordón beat China’s future Olympic champion Chen Long 21-19 7-21 27-25 in the opening round and went on to reach the quarterfinals at London’s Wembley Arena. Even now, he watches that Chen match on YouTube. “I think it’s titled ‘the greatest upset of the World Championships.’ I enjoy watching that match,” he says.

It was not simply a great result. It was a glimpse of what Cordón, who peaked at world number 24 in 2012, might have achieved had he been afforded the same opportunities as players from badminton’s traditional powerhouses. “To play at this top level, to keep playing good matches, you need constant exposure. You need to play a lot of tournaments. And for that you need money. That’s what I don’t have,” says Cordón, who is currently ranked 88th in the world.

There is no bitterness in the admission.

“Sometimes people expect that I would be unhappy that despite my talent I didn’t get the kind of opportunities that would have allowed me to go to the next level. But despite this I don’t have any regrets in my career.”

If anything, Cordón is grateful. “At the beginning of my career, I wouldn’t have thought I’d go this far. It was just great to even play these tournaments,” he says.

And Cordón’s had more than a few moments. The greatest example came at Tokyo in 2021 when, at 34, Cordón became the first man born outside Asia or Europe to reach the Olympic semifinals. He came within one match of an Olympic medal before eventually finishing fourth, losing the semifinal to eventual champion Victor Axelsen and then the bronze-medal match to Indonesia’s Anthony Ginting. He memorialised the competition with a tattoo on his left bicep with the words Tokyo 2020 on top of the word IMPOSSIBLE.

He refuses to view it as a missed opportunity.

“When I think about the bronze-medal match, I don’t think I missed out on a medal,” he says. “I feel proud. I would never have expected it. I had a chance to win a medal. I don’t think anyone would have thought I would be in that position. I never thought that myself.”

That perspective perhaps explains why Cordón is still playing.

In Tokyo 2021, Cordón became the first man born outside Asia or Europe to reach the Olympic semifinals. He memorialised the competition with a tattoo on his left bicep with the words Tokyo 2020 on top of the word ‘IMPOSIBLE’, with the I and M struck through. | Photo Credit: Jonathan Selvaraj

Simple motivation

In 2013, a serious knee injury nearly ended his career. When he returned, he regarded it as a second chance. “At that point I almost quit. I’d already played two Olympics. But when I recovered I thought, this is my second chance, let me make the most of it,” he recalls.

Thirteen years later, the motivation remains surprisingly simple. “It’s fun. I really like to play badminton. That’s why I’m still playing,” he says.

That, he says, is the biggest difference between the player who arrived at his first World Championships in Hyderabad in 2009 and the man walking into another one in 2026. “I have a lot more experience but I also have a lot more fun when I’m playing. As a young player, I was worried about who was standing on the other side of the net. If it was a higher-ranked player, I’d get nervous. Now it doesn’t matter. I just play. It genuinely doesn’t matter to me who’s on the other side of the net,” he says.

At just a month shy of 40, Cordón is conscious of his age but unwilling to accept that it should define him. “Back in 2011 when I reached the quarterfinals of the World Championships, a lot of people said I was proof that you could still play at a high level even if you didn’t have enough resources. You just need that spirit to play. Right now I’m trying to prove that age isn’t a limiting factor,” he says.

There is still a practical reason for continuing, too. The Olympic qualification period for Los Angeles begins next year, and Cordón wants to collect ranking points while enjoying what could be the final chapter of his career. “I really want to compete at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. I really want to be the first singles player to compete in six Olympics. It’s a real goal for me,” he says.

He is still hungry, but the hunger is no longer driven by proving himself to the badminton world. “It’s mostly very self-driven,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if I’m training by myself or I’m just sparring with my coach. I just try to do my best every day.”

Regardless of how he does at New Delhi, Cordón says he’s going to make the most of his time in India. “I look at playing tournaments like the World Championships or Olympics as a really big challenge,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if I win or not. I look at these tournaments as a chance to test myself. That’s why we are playing, right?”

Published on Aug 16, 2026

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