according to a chinabadminton report, Chen/Jiang retired from the WD semi-final match to Huang/Gao on purpose. that is to give Huang/Gao more rest to battle their potential opponent Ra/Lee. this is the similar situation as the Olympics. as Ye gave up her place to Gong so Gong can fight Camilla. however, this time Zhang/Wei managed to beat the Korean pair. i have only read one report of this, i also wonder if this is just a rumor generated by the reporter/media.
This "losing" on purpose seems like just a really lame excuse for defeat. But then again, i'm only a school player and not a country representative so what would i know. But from what i would think if this happened in my school team, its a lame, sorry excuse
I don't know which version of the article you read, Kwun. The one I saw had Li Yongbo confirming that "Jiang Xuelian was suffering from an ankle injury, but it wasn't so serious that she had to give up the SF match". But then, those reporters can make up anything...
<a target=top_ href="http://www.chinabadminton.com/news2001/jun/sjs10zszgndnsysmx.shtml">this one</a> (apologies to the non-Chinese readers) i am still trying to read through those 100's of WC/SC report on the website.
Chen/Jiang don't seem to drum up the same sort of sympathetic reaction that Ye Zhao Ying did on this website.