A few days ago, national women’s doubles shuttler Thinaah Muralitharan dedicated a touching post for her partner Pearly Tan Koong Le following their exit from the Olympics at the bronze medal matchup.
Now, Pearly has a few heartfelt words of her own for Thinaah, where she expressed her love and gratitude for the latter in a lengthy but heartwarming Instagram post.
Pearly: ‘We weren’t destined to be partners but we found each other’
In an Instagram post which has since garnered over 154,000 likes at the time of writing, Pearly wrote about the extraordinary circumstances that brought her and Thinaah, whom she affectionally calls “chaaaa”, as badminton partners.
We were not destined to be partners from the start but somehow found each other along the way and made it this far.
“In this few years of partnership, we had our own misunderstandings and struggles but these lows have shown me the true meaning of perseverance and partnership. Without you, my dream to be at the Olympics will never come true.”
The 24-year-old also apologised to Thinaah for the years she spent nursing her injuries and battling poor health, which left Thinaah having to “pick up the pieces all alone”.
“The last few weeks before Olympics have been challenging but we have gotten through it and have always found strength in each other,” she wrote.
It didn’t take long for the post to go viral, with netizens tearing up over the pair’s adorable yet strong friendship.
Even Thinaah herself responded to the touching post, where she jokingly chided Pearly for making her cry before thanking her for everything she had done all this while.
Pearly-Thinaah make history at the Olympics
While Pearly-Thinaah fell short of winning a bronze medal during their matchup against world No. 3 Matsuyama Nami and Shida Chiharu, they made history with their Olympic run by becoming the first Malaysian women’s doubles to reach the semi-finals.
Along the way, they defeated formidable foes such as Indonesia’s Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti in their final group stage match and bronze medallists Kim So-yeong-Kong Hee-yong from South Korean in the quarter-finals.
Read Pearly’s post here:
You can also catch up on what Thinaah wrote for Pearly here:
