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And sometimes they don’t . . .
Running across the picture above just seemed like serendipity when I also heard that eight female badminton players were disqualified for purposely trying to lose matches. Evidently this is not an unheard of tactic geared toward being placed against opponents easier to beat in future matches. It just seems such an Absolutely Fabulous thing to do.
The players from China, South Korea and Indonesia were charged with not doing their best to win a match and abusing or demeaning the sport during their lackluster contests the day before that angered the watching crowds as the Olympians (no more) appeared to be serving into the net on purpose.
During the first match between China and South Korea the tournament referee, Torsten Berg, was called to the court where he warned both pairs amid a chorus of boos from the crowd. In the second match between China and Indonesia Berg was called to the court at least twice, reporting that “neither side seemed to be exerting themselves.”
Who knew badminton could be so cutthroat?
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The Chinese have been manipulating matches (by giving walkovers) to get their players rankings and points up so that they’ll have the maximum number of players in the various big events for years now. They actually consider it perfectly legit – or the fault of the tournaments’ organisers because their players are ‘forced’ to do things like that. Look at what Lin Dan said. He as good as admitted doing the same thing but the WBF has never had the guts to do anything about this kind of match fixing so I’m really glad the Olympics people finally did.
But in all fairness, allowing it to go on and then lowering the boom at the Olympics seems kinda cruel.
Ah, well. At least it was only badminton.
(Ouch!)
LOL–How cool, I just went and watched the video. Thx
I wonder how long a badminton game lasts when both teams are trying to lose.
lol
I know, that just makes it so perfect for the girls, huh?