Viktor Axelsen born 4 January is a Danish badminton player. He has held the No. Axelsen won the World Championships in and , becoming the only non-Asian male player besides Thomas Lund to win the title twice. On individual levels, he won three European Championships titles in , , and , and a gold medal at the European Games in At six years old, his father introduced him to badminton, playing the games at the Odense badminton club.
His mother has a shop in central Odense with a hairdressing salon, cosmetics, and fashion clothing. He was named the Player of the Year by the Odense badminton club. Axelsen's achievements began when he won the National junior event in the boys' singles and doubles in his age group in and In January , Axelsen who played from the qualification round, manage to reach the finals at the Swedish International tournament, and finished as the runner-up after losing to Indra Bagus Ade Chandra in straight games 15β21, 12β Sai Praneeth in the semis and Kang Ji-wook of Korea in the final.
In , Axelsen secured gold at the European Junior Championships , defeating teammate Rasmus Fladberg 21β8, 17β21, 21β13 in the final. He qualified to compete at the Super Series Finals held in Dubai, and again finished as the runner-up. He was also part of the historic Danish team winning the first ever Thomas Cup title in Axelsen won five of his six played singles matches in the team tournament, including the match against Indonesia's experienced player Tommy Sugiarto in the final 21β17, 21β18 setting up a dramatic and historic 3β2 victory for Denmark over Indonesia.
In the Rio Olympics , he won the bronze medal by beating Lin Dan from China 21β15, 12β21, 21β In , Axelsen participated in the European Men's and Women's Team Badminton Championships and got a gold after suffering from a foot injury.
In the group stage, he defeated Vladimir Malkov from Russia and from Algeria. In the group stage match against Lee Chong Wei , he lost by two straight games 9β21, 19β In the quarter-finals match against South Korea, he defeated Son Wan-ho , but he lost to the favorite and former world no.
