KUALA LUMPUR: Women's pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah missed out on an Olympic medal after a 21-11, 21-11 loss to Japan's world No. 4 Chiharu Shida-Nami Matsuyama today, but they have already made an impression in Paris.
And Pearly-Thinaah hope to impress on Malaysia's young players that, they, too, can go all the way to the Olympics as contenders.
Thinaah said she hopes that their Olympic journey will inspire Malaysian
juniors to seek excellence at world level.
Though world No. 12 Pearly-Thinaah did not end up on the podium, their fourth-place finish saw them creating history as the first Malaysian women's pair to play off for bronze at the Olympics.
"It is tough to have a positive feeling right now after the defeat. I think it is going to take time for us to digest this.
"But I do realise that this is a good achievement for us and I'm proud of us. I hope this will give our juniors hope that anything is possible, and to strive harder to get better.
"A lot of people didn't believe in us in the beginning, so for us to reach this level, we need to give ourselves some credit," Thinaah told BWF.
Pearly said she felt sad that they could not bring home a medal, but accepted the defeat.
She said they want to focus on the positives from their Paris outing.
"I feel really sad but we accept the defeat. We take the positives and learn from this.
"Our opponents pressured us well and made it difficult for us to win any points. This led us to being impatient and we were rushing to kill off points which led to errors.
"We tried our best to change our plan, but nothing was working," said the 24-year-old.
"At this level, it's all about mental toughness and less about physical fitness or tactics.
"I have to praise them (Chiharu-Nami) for handling the pressure well and being aggressive all the way, that led to our defeat," added Thinaah.
Pearly and Thinaah will enjoy a short break with friends and family members, who travelled to Paris to support them, before returning home.