Too many threads to read; too many things at this year Olympics to summarize. 1) Badminton, 1st time in history, became the center for the news everywhere in the world for its disqualifying 8 players (including the best of the best, and 4 out of 5 best pairs in MD) 2) I think all 8 players were wrongedly accused. Especially the 4 Korean players, they were totally innocent. IOC may accuse Chinese pair and Indonesian pair for losing on purpose, but the 2 Korean players actually won their matches. You cannot punish the winners. Even though they play to lose 1 or 2 points, but when I see opponents committing a service fault, I usually do it again for courtesy no matter they did it on purpose or not. 3) It's really dissapointed for some players, including the biggest Wang XL/Yu Yang, they lost the gold in their pocket. Wang Xin was one of the most unlucky too, she lost his medal, instead got an injury in return. Especially untolerable thing was that she had asked 3 times to clean the floor which caused her injury, but rejected by the empire/judge. 4) the luckiest medalist were Russian WD, Indian WS, Japan's WD and China's TQ/ZYL. Without disqualification, TQ/ZYL should get a silver at best, while Russian WD and Japanese WD will not get a medal at all. If the empire had cleaned the floor for Wang Xin as it should be, then India WS would not get the medal. 5) China swept all 5 golds without their invincible lady's double. Denmark got 1 silver 1 bronze, huge improvement since 2008. Japan, India, even Russia got medals too. But the reason may not because their improvements, but beause the reasons listed above 1-4. 6) Indonesia got nothing from last time just 2nd to China. 7) ...
We know most organizations protect its players from outside attacks, while BWF is not. We all know it's a strategy to change the rhythm of playing. No body can play 100% top form all the time. In football, players usually stop attacking if leading comfortably. In basket ball, no team takes it seriously after entering trash time. It's typical for many players in different sports to lose some points on purpose for winning next round... They all call this strategy. There is no hard evidence to apply citation 4-5 and 4-16 because they are not quantifiable. But when Charoen Wattanasin, the executive for BWF, was asked what's the difference between this strategy in badminton and other sports, Charoen Wattanasin replied that: the other sports were strategy, but in badminton, it's cheating and fixing game. I never seen any executive attacking its own. For audience, it's a common sense that you cannot complain if you watch a trash time basketball game. You also cannot complain if you buy a ticket for a trash game at the end of season. For those people buying tickets, they should had already known that the final match in the group could be a trash match. It's their responsibility for watching those matches. The audience didn't know the draw of the tournament, didn't know why players played for losing either. It's the audience fall, or it's BWF/IOC's fault if they didn't want to fool those innocent audience.
1) China cemented their domination of the world's badminton arena. not even with IOC's bullying can put the China team down. 2) Lin Dan is the greatest player of all time. lee chong wei is the bridesmaid. 3) Cai Yun - Fu Haifeng is the most successful men's doubles in history. 1 Gold and 1 Silver. Thomas Cup champs. Sudirman cup champs. World champs, etc.
can't agree with you that the Korean are 100% innocent just because they eventually won the matches after 2 failed attempts to lose. If someone put a gun in your head tried to kill you and missed. Isn't it the same crime as it succeed? Or you just say hard luck and have another go?
In summary, China has four living legends: Lin Dan, Cai Yun, Fu Haifeng and new comer Zhao Yunlei (the first ever player to win two gold medals in one tournament) Yu Yang is a disgrace and she has lost her legendary place.
Best Highlights of the Olympics: 1) China is undisputed world number 1. Korea and Indonesia who used to win gold in Olympics will not be able to match that feat in 100 years time given the lack of depth in certain categories. 2) Lin Dan is the greatest of all time. So fanatics can keep their bloody mouth shut and stop making a fool of themselves when arguing who is the best. 3) Zhao Yunlei, the best all round player as she could triumph in both doubles categories at the same time. 4) Lee Chong Wei, best Malaysian Olympians of all time. He could reach the final twice in a row. That ain't fluke. 5) Cai Yun - Fu Haifeng imprinted their final star on their T-shirt finally. They are not the greatest doubles players of all time but nevertheless the most successful pair in Olympic Games and World Championships. 6) Japan won their first silver medal. Congrats to them though I felt they did cheat in the tournament. 7) Indonesia failed to win anything; this is the best part. Shows that their golden tradition is not sustainable. 8) Korea managed to win only a bronze...biggest failure to their standards. Lee Yongdae expects nothing less than a gold but Jung Jae-sung is pleased with a bronze. better than none. 9) 8 players were given the walk of shame for their career. Life for them will never be the same again. Hopefully Li Yongbo gets beating from the Chinese delegation despite China's clean medal sweep.
Yu Yang has probably nothing to do with the decision to lose the match, she can thank Li Yongbo the mastermind...
Different sports have different requirements. Football and Basketball are won/lost on the score after a time limit. Badminton has no time limit & only finishes after a score has been reached. The analogy that is being presented is not correct. The WD players were actively giving points to the competition, not just making it easy for the opposition to win. The correct analogy would be if they started scoring own-goals or own-baskets. This has actually happened before. 1998 Tiger Cup Thailand vs Indonesia 1994 Carribean cup Barbados vs Grenada Thailand and Indonesia were fined $40k and the guy who scored the own goal was banned for life from international football. There where no immediate repercusions from FIFA for Barbados & Grenada as it wasn't a FIFA sanctioned tourney (FIFA run the Confederations Cup). but the format of the Carribean cup changed the next year.
I kind agree with your disagree. Koreans sound like at the same level as Chinese and Indonesians. However if I were the player, when I faced the opponent trying to lose, and losing was a better choice for myself too, I would definitely try to lose too. In this logic, I would be less quilty than my opponents, although both my opponents and I may be all innocent.
Agree with your first point. But for Yu Yang, I still think she's one of the greatest, and especially this time, she's totally innocent, she had to follow coaches order, on the other hand, losing made her to face the strongest opponent in the whole tournament. What a courage!
very comprehensive! better than mine, but I can hardly agree with your point 9. I feel sorry for those 8 players, they tried so hard for the past 4+ years, and trying to win the best, not just 1 match.
exactly. Totally agree with you. Even LYB made the right decision at that time. The match for losing was not interesting of course, but the purpose was to make the next round (more important matches) more interesting.
You made your points, but I still think that's the same in quality, just a little bit different in quantity. That's not uncommon to see football and basketball players shooting their own goals. Most of them never got punished. Instead, some of them hailed as great even greatest match. One example was that in world tournament, Czech (cannot remember which country) played with Yugoslavia (cannot remember this either). Czech had to win at least 7 points to advance, but at the end, 5 seconds left, Czech was leading only 2 points. So they, instead of scoring at Yugoslavia's basket, they put the ball into their own basket basket. Since there is no draw in basketball, so they can start allover again to play extra time. In extra time, they managed to win 7 points. This is exactly the same, as those 8 players did. If they want to win at the end, they had to lose the current match.
Wow, this is the first time I had heard of the Czech-Yugoslav basketball incident. Pretty interesting thing to know.
A more similar scenario : http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/18022010/58/bowls-rocked-match-fixing-scandal.html The team got fined, the captain got banned 6 months. You all keep comparing to team sports like football, basketball. How to proof they deliberately score own goal ? They can claim it's accidental. Has there been any cases where one of the team came foreward to say he/she were ordered to score own goal, with tape recording proof? It's harder to proof, or could be the association just close one eye like BWF did for many years. The 4 pairs, Korean chief coach blabbered out, YY said conserve energy but their acting was so bad nobody was convinced, someone posted PBSI later admitted they asked the INA WD to lose.
Again the analogy is different. The match was drawn & went into overtime. The Czech did not lose the match.
The 8 badminton players did not lose their chances (or probabilities) to win the medals, instead, what they did was the right way to increase their chances and probabilities.
Everything has it's own uniqueness in certain ways. The key here is not how they win or lose, it's that they have the same intention, to explore the loophole within the current system, to gain advantage. It can be as obvious as giving up points, or score own goal, or, can be "well hidden" as on purpose put less effort (or use less quality bench to begin with, etc). The detailed implementation or degree of "less effort" can surely be different from case by case, but the intention is the same "to lose" or "does not care about winning or lose". For argument sake, all of such can be labeled as "not trying with best effort".
