They have contested in many major tournament finals and are currently the only two badminton men singles players who have contested in two Olympic finals consecutively, which saw Lin triumph both times to become the only man in history to defend his Olympic gold. Lin first won in Beijing 2008 in a one-sided final before the 2 men clashed once again 4 years later in an unprecedented but widely anticipated repeat final at London 2012. This time around, the match was much closer with Lee drawing first blood before Lin hit back to take the match to a decider. The game swung back and forth with 13 ties, the last one 19-19. Lin Dan then took the next 2 points to win his second Olympic gold. As Lin celebrated, Lee remained motionless and teared up before his coaches consoled him to leave the court. While some people questioned Lee's mental strength at critical matches afterward, such notion was not supported by match results. For example, five times during the Lee-Lin rivalry, the match went to 3 games and was decided by only 2 points in the final game. Lee led Lin 3-2 in such extremely tight contests, the last such match came during their colossal 2016 Summer Olympics semi-final, which Lee won the decider with a score of 22-20.