It’s not a sport that generally attracts a lot of attention during the Olympics, but several Badminton players are accused of deliberately losing games to secure better match-ups in the elimination round:
China’s Olympic sports delegation has begun an investigation into allegations two badminton players “deliberately lost” their match, state media say.
Doubles players Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli are among eight players charged by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) with “not using one’s best efforts to win”.
Four players from South Korea and two from Indonesia have also been charged.
Some of the players said they were saving energy. Reports say they wanted to lose to secure an easier draw.
It may not be a technical violation of the rules to “take it easy” in a non-critical game, but it does sound as if these particular players didn’t even bother to make it look like they were competing.
The match between the top-seeded Chinese duo and South Koreans Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na came under scrutiny after the longest rally in their game lasted four shots.
Match referee Thorsten Berg came on court at one point to warn the players, who also appeared to make deliberate errors.
Both pairs were already through to the quarter-finals.
The Chinese duo lost, meaning — Xinhua noted — that if both Chinese pairs continue to do well, they will not meet until the final.
Update: The IOC Badminton World Federation (BWF) brings out the ban hammer:
EIGHT female badminton players have been sent home from the Olympics, disqualified by the sport’s world federation after throwing matches in a case condemned by London Games boss Sebastian Coe as “depressing” and “unacceptable”.
A disciplinary hearing held this morning, which Australia’s badminton coach made a submission to, found that four players from South Korea, two from Indonesia and the competition’s top seeds from China deliberately tried to lose their qualifying matches in an attempt to manipulate their draws.
The four sets of doubles teams were charged after matches on Tuesday littered with basic errors. Accused by badminton’s international governing body of “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport”, they were ultimately found guilty of trying to lose with the motive of improving their positions for the knockout stages.
The spectators who attended the matches on Tuesday night will not be offered refunds by the London organizers, according to the BBC:
No refund will be offered to spectators at badminton "no contest" last night say Locog #london2012
— norman smith (@Thehackandhound) August 1, 2012
Seb Coe on Badminton: "depressing, who wants to sit through something like that?" but IOC/Locog say no refund on tix #London2012
— Cassell Bryan-Low (@CassellBryanLow) August 1, 2012
Update, the second: I couldn’t find any actual footage of the match in question until CTV posted it (not embeddable, unfortunately). It’s amazingly bad. The audience absolutely deserve a full refund.
