The badminton fraternity saw the retirement of two prominent doubles players in a span of a month. England's Anthony Clark and China's Du Jing have officially bid farewell to the sport they have made significant contributions to.

On 17 October, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) received the official notification of retirement of Du Jing from China Badminton Association.

Du Jing, one half of the reigning Olympic women's doubles champion with Yu Yang at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, was plagued with recurring injuries and has had to separate with Yu Yang after the duo won the 2010 World Champion women's doubles title in Paris.

Yu Yang has gone ahead to defend her world title with Wang Xiaoli at the 2011 edition in London, and the duo are sitting firmly on the world number 1 position on the BWF World Rankings and are in favourable position to get gold at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

27-year-old Du Jing, on the other hand, has struggled to refind her fitness and form and her retirement also concludes her long and hard battle against her injury woes.

While in Europe, last Friday, Badminton England announced the official retirement of doubles specialist Anthony Clark, who is one of English badminton greatest doubles player having bagged medals from the World Championships, European Championships, Commonwealth Games and the BWF World Superseries.

Clark, aged 34, announced his decision to retire at the end of this year, after competing in last week’s Bitburger Open in the German city of Saarbrucken.

Clark is the one of only two current England players to have played over 100 times for their country, Nathan Robertson being the other. Though Robertson is still in the run for a mixed doubles qualification berth at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

His achievement was marked at the Yonex All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham in March this year, when Clark was introduced to the fans and presented with a commemorative gold cap.

Clark ends his career with 106 England appearances to his name.

The full article on Clark's retirement and recapturing his glittering career can be found on Badminton England's website here.