They are world No.7 Nguyen Tien Minh and Vu Thi Trang, who won bronze at the Singapore Youth Olympics last year.

It will be Minh’s second Olympic Games in a row. His participation next year in international Super Series of 10-12 competitions and the Grand Prix should see him hold this world ranking, though his recent loss to Japanese Sho Sasaki at the Denmark Open and to Danish Peter Hoeg Gade have shown his weak points.

Trang’s hopes for an Olympic berth are also fraught with difficulties. She has not achieved much since her win at the Youth Olympics and her 154^th position in the world ranking is not high enough to qualify for the Olympics.

Names of the 172 players who will go to the Olympics will be published at the end of June, said the World Badminton Federation.

In 2008, Minh and Le Ngoc Nguyen Nhung were defeated in the first round in Beijing Olympics.