Full coverage: 2016 Rio Olympics

The draw for the badminton tournament at the Rio Olympics was conducted on Tuesday with particular attention being paid to men's world number one Lee Chongwei of Malaysia and China's two-time Olympic gold medallist Lin Dan, who is currently ranked at number three by the BWF. And both the stars have been drawn into the same bracket which means they can only meet in the semi-finals in Brazil.

That rules out the possibility of a repeat of the final at the 2008 Beijing Games in which the Chinese defeated the Malaysian for the gold medal. Lin then repeated that feat in London four years later. On the women's side, China's world number three Li Xuerui and teammate Ma Lin were placed on the same side while China's highest ranked woman at number two, Wang Yihan, lines up in the opposite half. The four Russian competitors have all been given clearance from the BWF to play with the organization's president believing they are all clean.

"We believe we have had a very rigorous testing program leading up to these Games and also in the years leading up to these Games. All the Russian players have been tested in and out of competition and from labs outside Russia. At this time we have no reason to say they don't fulfil the criteria and hence why they are part of this draw today,"  BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund said.