Liem Swie King (Chinese: 林水鏡; pinyin: Lín Shuǐjìng; born 28 February 1956) is an Indonesian badminton player who excelled from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s.
During elementary school, he studied at Sekolah Tionghoa, and later moved to SD Negeri Dema'an II in 1965.
[7] With proper coaching, it did not take long for the teenage Liem to start overwhelming opponents with his fast-paced style in various local youth badminton tournaments.
[8] In 1973, Liem was called to join the provincial badminton squad for National Sports Competition (Pekan Olahraga Nasional) VIII.
Later on, Liem won the All-England Men's Singles Championships in 1978, 1979 and 1981 during a six-consecutive-year run to the finals (1976–1981) of what was then perhaps the world's most prestigious badminton tournament.
He was the runner-up at the then triennial World Championships in both 1980 and 1983 to, consecutively, fellow Indonesians Rudy Hartono and Icuk Sugiarto.
Although some players were claimed to originate the move, Liem was widely accepted as the man who popularized the jumping smash.
Unlike most pro players before him, who used hopping leg action to compensate the lateral gap to reach the shuttlecock, Liem effectively used a higher vertical leap in executing his smash.
Liem's vertical leap explosiveness came from his low crouching stance before launching his jump, he then intercepted the shuttlecock at high altitude with a ferocious whipping strike, or sometimes a deceptive drop shot which immobilized his opponent who was expecting a slamming hit from him.