The last time Luis Ramon Garrido laid eyes on Lin Dan before their chance meeting in the Olympic Village during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Mexican was ranked inside the world’s top 50 and had just qualified for Rio 2016.

Then came an illness that almost killed him, eight knee surgeries and a creeping self-doubt that kept him off court for more than four years.

“I can remember him since I was a kid, he was just unreal,” Garrido said, moments after brushing past alpine skiing legend Lindsey Vonn to grab a selfie with ‘Super Dan’ on the fringes of the Olympic Flame Relay. “He’s my favourite ever player. I just saw him there, so I told him he’s my idol.”

After a promising junior career brought him very close to appearing alongside Lin in Rio, the road to Garrido’s belated Olympic debut in Paris has been long, winding, and often extremely painful.

“I almost lost my life in 2015,” the 28-year-old said. “I got an illness called rhabdomyolysis. I was losing the kidneys. They were not processing everything, so I was peeing blood every day.

“At one moment, it was 50/50, because if you don’t take care of this illness the right way, it just goes fast. The doctor told me if I didn’t attend to that illness, it may have been the end in a couple of days.”

Garrido survived, moved to Spain to live with a specialist doctor for four months, then slowly returned to his first love: badminton.

He had picked up the sport at an early age through his father, an ex-professional footballer who moved into developing sports rackets for a university in Monterrey after hanging his boots.

“We started in an old gym in the university, just for fun,” Garrido said. “I was practically still a baby, playing badminton in a nappy. I just got addicted to hitting that shuttle.”

Garrido’s career suffered another, almost terminal, setback at the beginning of 2018, with the first of several knee injuries that made him question his desire to continue.

“I destroyed my right knee at a tournament,” he said. “I destroyed everything: the patella and tendon, the knee ligaments, two meniscuses. It was pretty painful – not only physically, but also mentally.”

Eight knee surgeries followed in the next four years.

“I thought about retiring in 2022 but I couldn’t get the Olympic dream out of my mind,” he said. “I knew I won’t be winning a medal, and this isn’t pessimism or negativity, it’s just the truth.

“With all the injuries I’ve had and all the time I’ve lost, I know my position; I know who I am. I know I’m going to fight and even if I have to give my life, I will do it.

“It doesn’t matter who’s in front of me. Thinking about the whole process, it’s just a dream to be at the Olympics.”