Recently the caption topic has been reported and discussed again in www.chinabadminton.com - it has been confirmed by PRC officials that Ye had conceded points to Gong in semi-finals. In fact, I only knew this recently. The topic had been vigorously discussed in discussion forum on that site. Surprisingly, there are people (including the Master coach of PRC team - Lee Wing Bo) think that there is nothing wrong with this act ! Please note that I don't want to compare Gong Zhi Chao and YE Zhaoying here, as both of them are great players IMO. However, as a Chinese, I really can't feel this can bring any glory to us.
Looking at Gong's recent performance in the All-England could it be Gong was just so good that Ye had to concede points? Gong didn;t just win at the Olympics but at other tournaments as well.
I have not followed this debate but here is my take on the gong and Ye situations. I believe it was done to secure a win at the olympic. It seem the record says that gong has a better chance of success over CM than Ye over CM. ie, gong is a better CM killer than Ye. I have seen Ye vs CM play before and it's around 50/50 chance. In the olympic, it's about country vs country more so than player vs player. So, it was prudent for lee wing bo to have gong vs CM. It is the right thing to do for china. It comes down to batting averages. cooler
The key is not who is better, as I said earlier, both are great players in my opinion. I also agree that Gong performed extremely well in All England Open. The point is : PRC team have acknowledged that they "instructed" Ye to loose on purpose because they thought that Gong had better chance to win Camila Martin. I think one of the very important element in Olympic is fair, but can you say this is fair to Ye ? As some reporters said, that was the last chance for Ye to win Olympic in her life, but she ended up loose to her teamate on purpose ! If she tried her best and still loose to Gong, then there is nothing anyone can say. However, as someone said in the discussion forum in chinabadminton.com, both players may always carry unerasable unhappy memory now ...
It is hard to say if it is fair or not, if you are familiar with the sport system in China. First, how many talent athletics are ordered to become practise partner before they realy show their talent. If some coach think you are not going to success, either out or become practise partner. Do you think all of them are really have no chance to success? hard to say, may be right, maybe wrong. Is that fair to them? do they suffer less than Ye and Gong? Second, Sport system in China is govement system. Our athletics are employees, Can you say no to you boss if you don't want to lose your job? (it is another story if you don't mind to be kicked out). Our athletics did not pay a penny for their training since young, instead, they are paid for their training. Do you think it is fair that goverment pays for sports and has no right to secure the gold medal to rise the national flag in Olympic? do you think it is fair for a country to lose its gold medal because the atheletics want to be fair? Individule benifit and coutry benifit, which one do you choose if you have to choose one of them? If our athletics are individule like foreigh athletics, sure it is UNFAIR, but now hard to say. Third, Sport spirit is individule based. Can you tell me why rising winner's national flags and play their national song in Olympics? Should we work hard, work together to try to rise our national flag as many times as possible in Olympics? If it is not necessary, whay we spend so much money to support sport system in China, We have so many poor people, poor places where children can not affort to go to school. Why not use sport money for those things? Why we need that gold medal at first place? If you think the officer is wrong, I can not agree. They are doing their jobs. They are trying their best to do the job better, for them, is to get more gold medals. You want them to be blamed for losing gold medal in order to be fair to players? Do you think it is fair to officers? Every body is working for his/her benefit, if there is conflict, there must be some way to solve the conflic, that is why we need rule and law.Our system is not be perfect. As long as we have not improved our system, we have no better ways to solve the problem. Please to be fair to every body, atheltics, officers, coaches and Country. Every body is equal here.
yes, for the bigger cause, or in this case, bigger prize. for china, they rather have #1, #2 #3 in this order gong, cm, ye than cm, gong, ye or cm, ye, gong. for me, a gold medal worth more than a silver + bronze. --------------------- In my case, a corporate challenge event in my city calgary where many many company participate and compete in several sport events. My badminton team (me captain) was in the final. I asked my partner to play the men single to lose (the opponent is provincially ranked #9 so i know i can't beat him; incidently, our provincially ranked #1 is national #1 too) so i can play mix double to guarantee a win, and therefore, a sure gold medal for the company. No, he wont listen because his girlfriend was their and he dont want to look bad in front of her. So i had no choice but let him play mix and hope he can squeeze in a win. Guess what, he was showing off and in the end he trip himself falling backward and jam his right hand on the floor to avoid a volleyball post. A nurse was called and an arm bandage follows. As no substitute ws allowed, we had to default that game and we end up with a silver and the opponent got the gold. I had the gold medal secured if my plan was followed. I'm sure china was glad that Ye zhao ying obeyed lee wing bo strategy, huh?
ricky, it is an unfortunate situation but ye and gong should know what citizenship they belong to. Also, i'm sure this is not the first time their coach have asked them to win or lose a match. Who the best between gong and ye, i think they both knows. I'm sure they have numerous matches between themself back home in training. Their coach knows too and that why he did what he did.
The thing is winning in practice does not mean winning tournaments. There are a lot of examples - Zhao JianHua vs Yang Yang; Han Ai Ping vs Li Ling Wei, and so on... I believe here Gong has the edge. Technically speaking I believe Yeh to be stronger than Gong but the latter seems to be tougher mentally. The one that wins tournaments is the one that is tougher mentally in my opinion. Yeh is technically the best female player during the last few years (probably better than Gong and better than Susi) but her results were not as good as expected. In the Olympic games the athlete is representing their country and as such the country's interests have priority over their own interests. If the coaching staff thought that Gong is the better player to play against CM that's fine. If Yeh listened to the coaching staff then fine. I do not see this as cheating rather a tactical decision.
I knew that some ppl were bound to misunderstand me, should have had the common sense not to post this up. Not really. I don't agree. I believe that in every tournament, u should strive to win.
I can understand all you said, and I hope someday Chinese athletics can play for themselves like foreign athletics (I believe a lot of things will be changed as well at that time).
I've been following the discussion on the chinabadminton forum... plenty of mudslinging in each other's direction, with fans on either side bashing the players in the name of justics, patriotism and the Olympic spirit. May I say that it makes for great late-night comic relief? Enough of the preamble though. My take on the entire issue is mainly sympathy in Ye's direction. Being an emotional and unpredictable "it" (as well as a natural born loser in life), I always tend to feel for the people who don't stand to gain. I have nothing against Gong Zhichao but I have everything against her corny Ye-bashing fans. Admittedly, this is not going to be beneficial to either player in the long run ("unerasable memories"?) but what the heck, at least Gong walked away with the gold. How abt Ye? Retired, and still the subject of bashing by relentless people... for God's sake, there were some who even declared unabashedly that she deserved the so-called "unfair" treatment... blame it on herself for losing to Kelly Morgan in the Malaysian Open.... oh wow. As for the society above self issue, I suppose it all depends on how you view it. Me, I've been consistently brainwashed on the said topic from the moment I could read the "shared values of (some) Singaporeans" printed on the backs of primary school exercise books.... so forgive me for not buying that. I suppose I'm saying what I said as a result of what I read on other forums. Plus the fact that I'm not in a terribly good mood today...... no offense intended at all.
Is it fair? Definitely not. Not to Ye, even worst to Gong. Why? According to reliable source, Gong was kept in the dark before and after the match. If Ye were not instructed to throw the game, can Gong beat Ye? Well, based on the previous few encounters, I could confidently say, YES. So what¡¦s the fuss? Li Yongbo has his duty to perform. In case if it wasn¡¦t Gong¡¦s day, an ¡¥upset¡¦ is possible and Ye could win. So, instruction has to be made clear. Is it wrong? Morally (in the spirit of sport), maybe. But for the bigger picture and ensuring the success of a nation, NO. I think I am not in the position to say right or wrong, till we are in their shoe, then we¡¦ll have a taste of their dilemma.
Yes, I agree with you, May. The object for an individual player in any individual tournament is to win all his/hers matches. However, in a team tournament the object is to make sure that the team wins, and if that means losing a game then that's fine with me. Formally, the Olympics is not about teams competing against each other (except in team sports of course). It's individuals competing against individuals. Medals are awarded to individuals, not to countries. So I think this so-called Chinese "tactic" is very questionable.
Do you still believe in the original "Olympic" ideals as according to Pierre de Coubertin? Look at Olympic football, basketball, etc. Even badminton, is it played by amateur athletes? About medals, please have a look at the medals table and tell me where do you see the athlete's name in it. All countries are battling to be at the top of the table. Countries setting the goal of many medals they will reap during the games. The country's pride is at stake. This is in my understanding a country vs country issue rather than athlete vs athlete. Going a little off the Olympics badminton, and again Tang Hsien Fu, Hou Jia Chang and Rudy Hartono: they were considered at a time the best players in the world and why Indonesia never allowed Hartono to play the Chinese players? China on the other hand pressed for the match. Isn't this also a player vs player issue? Why is the country forbidding it's best player to go against the others? Is it fair to Hartono not able to prove to the world that he is really the best? Lastly how much funds are you going to get for the development of your programmes if you fail to get that much wanted medal? I don't know if these things make sense but that's what I have in my mind.
