British badminton player Gail Emms, who won silver in the mixed doubles at the 2004 Games, said: "I don't blame the players. The system was there. The organisers let it happen in one match and then they were stuck, they couldn't do anything about the second match. And now we're in this horrible situation. "It's unfair to all the players. They just wanted to be medallists for their country. It's a tactic. This is why you need straight knockouts." http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/201...apologises-players-disqualified?newsfeed=true This observation seems to make the most sense.
Gail also retired so there is no more implication for her to speak what she think is the truth. and there is no one to tell her what to say.
Sorry to disagree with Gail here. I actually wouldn't have had much of a problem if the Chinese team had come up with some lame stomach ailment excuse (didn't LD teach them anything??) and gave the WO to the Koreans. Hell, after eating that crappy British Food who would question them? But, as I said in another thread to instead put on such a sad spectacle and insult to the fans. They deserve the DQ just for stupidity.
Interesting analogy...just curious...if the offending players were Cai/Fu, LD, Gade, or LCW would they be condemned so harshly?
I guess players can't be trusted to be professional enough and has to be "protected" by the system. But we're talking about plain stupidity here, and blatantly throwing games like in the recent fiasco is surely going to get a lot of notice. It's a grave insult to ticket-paying audiences and causing disrepute for the sport in the long term. I hope both parties (BWF & players) have learnt their lesson. They can't say that they didn't see this coming. It's been going on for a number of years, whether one calls it match fixing, a stomach ailment, or something equally retarded.
Of course, why would you believe otherwise? I don't get your ..ahem.. logic. Edit: Also, what analogy??
No such walkovers in Olympics, at least this format. To my understanding, once you retire within a match, or W/O, you are completely eliminated. You recind your right to play.
I've never heard of this provision in any of the rules. Do you have any link to support this idea? My understanding is that this would come under the purview of the BWF and not the IOC.
Lol not really. But with the walkovers/retires we've had so far, they're all injury based. The MD from Poland retired after one of them was hurt (they were 15-17 down in the 3rd set), and that meant the pair had been withdrawn or DQ. The results page at CTVOlympics changed all their results to 21-0 21-0 and that they lost and were out. But in the same sense that this whole thing is wrong, when people are blaming the players for perversing the Olympic Oath and sportsmanship etc, they are really saying, you shouldn't be not playing, unless you're injured, and should actually just leave and not play. Because based in truthfulness and honestly and "olympic ideals", if you W/O or withdraw, either based on injury or something, you withdraw completely. The Olympics believe you're injured and can no long compete, I guess. I don't know, I'm really just speculating based on what I've seen from "retires" in the matches so far =]
I agree with what she said here... IOC/BWF put the blame on the players for not playing to their best, but they should also take into consideration it was also their fault for letting it happen
Either way it's all just splitting hairs. There is plenty of blame to go around and, at the end of the day there are no innocent parties. These ladies were warned of the possible consequences and they chose to carry on. Ultimately of course responsibility for this fiasco rest with the BWF. They've completely failed the players and the fans. I actually don't know what role the national associations have with the BWF so it will be interesting to see if the details on how the decision to go with this format came about come to light. I've also been interested in the comments from the Chinese side. They've talked about further investigations and holding players involved responsible. I would actually hope that the focus would be on the team mangers (coaches) and any pressure put on the players to toss the match. It would be pretty sad to see China throw these players under the bus rather than hold the coach responsible. That is of course, assuming the players were instructed to lose.
You're saying they have to be subtle about it and not insult the fans, yet you suggest they pretend they're sick for one day then come back totally healed the next day. I don't see how that would be any better
I wasn't advocating any sort of fixing. In fact I've been vocal in my opposition to it on these forums for years. Have you actually seen the footage of the match? It was sickening to watch. Just because I think faking illness would have been better doesn't mean I think doing so should be ok. As a paying fan I'd have preferred to have been informed the match was cancelled and leave rather than sitting through that hoping at some point they would begin to try.
I agree with your points in the thread, Thunder. Cant believe they made it so obvious. They could've faked an injury or hit everything out (just).
I kinda feel bad for the players, as they start in a no-win situation: 1. Fight to death, face off against stronger teammate = team punishment, which will risk their own career 2. Fake to WO = fans going to to boil them 3. Fake to lose = get DQed, and fans going to boil them So, lose lose situation to begin with...
I might have been more sympathetic to the players had I not seen the excerpt from Yu Yangs blog the Kwun posted somewhere. She railed about avoiding injury and blamed the BWF/IOC for ruining her dream. It just shows a complete inability to take responsibility for one's own actions. As well as being BS. If she was worried about injury she could have just steam-rolled the Koreans who would have gladly rolled over for them. As for her big dream, she sure pissed it away easily enough. The players should be mad at their national associations who at the very least should have seen this possibility very early on and convinced the BWF to change the structure. I have a hard time believing that the BWF would be able to ignore the Chinese, Korean and INA national associations. Of course it's very likely these associations (at least CHN and KOR) felt they could easily manipulate such a structure and stayed silent or worse advocated for it. <=== *** speculation not opinion here ****
It's easier for us to say woulda, shoulda, coulda, because our own career is not on the line. Like I pointed out, they got stucked to begin with. What will be your solution, if you are in any one of the 8 ladies' shoes?