Gu Juan

Who is Gu Juan?

Gu Juan is a China born Singaporean badminton player.

Gu followed her father to Nanjing when she was six years old. Due to poor body constitution, her father send her to a badminton school to build up her body. Gu represented Nanjing and won a competition. She was subsequently invited to join the Beijing badminton team but withdrew after not being used to the weather conditions. Gu then further represented Nanjing in the Jiangsu sports competition and won the girls doubles and mixed doubles. Former Jiangsu badminton coach, representing the Singapore Badminton Association, scouted her and invited her to Singapore.

Gu came to Singapore in 2003 under the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme and became a Singapore citizen in June 2007. She left the Singapore national team to return to Shanghai for studies a year later. However, 16 months later, after the persuasion of the Singapore national badminton team's head coach, she re-joined the national team.

Gu Juan was part of the Singapore women's team who won the silver medal at the 2007 Southeast Asian Games held in Thailand.

Gu was selected as Singapore's only Olympic women's singles player for the 2012 Summer Olympics Games by the Singapore Badminton Association, ahead of Southeast Asian Games women's singles champion Fu Mingtian.