Malaysian Olympic hopeful Lee Zii Jia is a badminton player who won the gold medal in the men’s singles event at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games. Zii Jia started 2020 in the best form of his career so far, reaching the semi-final of the prestigious All England championship and beating some of the best players in the world including China’s Chen Long, the Olympic champion. Zii Jia began playing badminton when he was 6 years old when his father took him to a badminton club in Kedah to help improve his health. After a series of impressive results in the under 12 competition, he was offered a place at the Bukit Jalil Sports School, and became the Perak and Selangor Badminton Open junior champion in 2015.
A year later he rose to prominence internationally after winning a bronze medal at the World Junior Championships.

His first senior title came at the Polish International in 2017, and he won his first BWF World Tour title in 2018 when he was victorious in the final of the Chinese Taipei Open. Since winning the men’s singles gold medal and the national men’s team silver medal at the Southeast Asian Games, Zii Jia’s playing career is on a meteoric rise, beating Jonatan Cristie, Lu Guangzu and Chen Long at the 2020 All England Open before losing in a epic battle to Viktor Axelsen.

After becoming one of the Top 10 ranked players in the world at the start of 2020, Zia Jia is continuing to grow as a player and is one of Malaysia’s biggest hopes for a medal at the Tokyo Summer Olympics.