"Pretend matches" are not good to watch The key word is that "all" matches might be played with greater fighting spirit, and with no Walkover given. Yes, most of the complains in the past were mainly directed to matches when players were playing against fellow countryman, as like what happened as posted as POST#1 of this thread. It is so unfortunate that there are so many good players from China... that we frequently see Chinese players playing against each other or giving WO to each other. It's good that LYB is honest with what he did say, like in POST#1 of this thread. He knows that what he did was not illegal, therefore he wasn't afraid to admit it. The only complain from us Badminton fans is that some good fighting spirited matches were not played as they should. "Pretend matches" are not good to watch. Walkovers matches are even worse... no match to watch. ***
Walking over fellow countrymates is nothing new… but badminton is different from Tennis. Badminton is more country base, where the national team train together while tennis are more individual base where players are profesional are trained by their own coach. But playing dirty is unacceptable, corrupting the linesman… That what we call over did it
End The Farce By Bettering Them As someone (was it bananakid?) said earlier, the solution lies in finding people who can beat Li Yongbo's clutch of players. Imagine if someone had done a Park Sung Hwan on Bao Chunlai in an earlier round, Li Yongbo wouldn't have had a chance to arange his regular walkovers and easy matches. But, simply put, that was not to be And it didn't help at all that Taufik chose to stay away from it all (At least Lin Dan was spared all the trouble because he got clobbered early )
Of course it wouldn't be a problem if CHN just had poor players never making it trough the early rounds ... But it seems like a silly argument.. Only if other countries where much superior to players from china, the benefit of wo:s, thrown matches would not be an issue.. Otherwise they would always benefit to do this compared to the other players, that have to fight each match for an "honest" win, even against their countrymen. /T
Well, at its worst, you'd have an Indonesian LYB or a Malaysian LYB But, and I'll bet two beers on this, you'd have a LYB around
Ok, so you agreed that Olympic game is a country based game, which means, the national order is above individual's pride. Then, following your argument, I can say the so call "match fixing" makes perfect sense, as the individual (YZY) gives up her own medal for a better chance to get the gold for the naiton. The problem I see in this thread (as well as many others) is that ppl's argument are contradict to each other, but all aiming at CHN team. On one side, you can say not fair for individual, then immediately following up with nice case of "country based game".
I surely posted a lot, but you did not read at all. You feel for somebody, good. At least, the "somebody" had a chance to "lose". Tell me how XXZ and XXF feels in 2004, when they can't even participate OG2004? They were the MS champion and WS runner up in WC2003. Tell me how 50% of my listed CHN players will feel, when they are ranked top 10-20, but never got a chance to play OG. Do we feel sorry for them? Do they ever been considered as legit "individual"?
Why CHN can flood the top 10, while other nations can't? Simply because they are not good enough to begin with. Limit one or a few nations' entries, to make other non-competitive ones laugh, is not OG spirit for sure. Yeah, I feel for YZY as well. However, she at least got to play. Ask XXZ, ask XXF for OG2004. I think they will surely shouted in joy, if they can play. Too bad, they never get onto court, never mention whatever "fixing" in later round or not. Ask good players like Chen Yu, don't you think he deserves to participate OG more than 90% MS players in the world? From his rank, sure. From his nationality, no. Do you think we should feel for such CHN players even more?
I don't see your logic here. So, you tell me, at the "entry selection" stage, OG is a "nation vs. nation" game, so, cutting off the talents from competitive nations is alright. Because, "every nation gets a chance". Then, you tell me, once the game gets on, it's "individual". And you want to see the "truely best to win". Give me a break. Pick you side, but not switching side whenever it benefits your own point of view. If you think it's national game, then any "legal" strategy to help out your teammate is acceptable. If you think it's an individual game, then, don't set any limition regarding the "national flag", and let the true best of best to enter the areana and bring up the fun for us.
In cycling, one common strategy is to let 1 member to lead, to play mental game on opponent teams/individuals, and force them to waste their energy at the beginning. In a long run, get your own champion candidate to get better chance. In car racing, there are a lot of "blocking" involved as well, to let your teammate to advance. Similar in individual games, such as diving and gymnastics. Usually, the younger players are ordered to go with the most difficult routine at the beginning. Why? It benefits in 2 ways: 1. If the routine is successful, the young player is the leader, which means, good chance to win the gold. 2. If the routine is not, s/he already rasing the standard for the judge, and again, mentally force other opponent to follow, therefore, to make mistakes. Therefore, their teammates have a better chance to capture the gold. Eitherway, there are "team strategy" involved, mostly on the mental side rather than physical, but they did work. And the goal is simple, capture the gold for the team/nation, even though all of them are so-call "individual game".
that's a fair point Lazy Buddy made. for all the "fairness" everyone's screaming for, has anyone thought about how fair it is on people like Chen Yu, Jiang Yanjiao and Xia Xuanze. they will never get to play in the Olympics because of the 3 person rule. they are, or were good enough to play. Xia was still a top player in 04. Chen Yu has reached several finals this year, beaten Lee Chong Wei, and a score of other players. yet he isn't allowed to play. if it's all about fairness, then shouldn't anyone be allowed to play, as long as they're good enough? as long as they're at the right rank. if it's all about fairness and individuality, then Chen Yu has every right to go to the Olympics. but he can't. the 3 person rule was basically made to stop china from dominating. how many other countries can have so many strong singles players? there's only Lee Choong Wei for malaysia, peter gade and kenneth for denmark, and Taufik(borderline) and Sony. but in China, there are so many who don't even get a chance to show up because of this limit. is there any fairness in that?
Should we make all Badminton tournaments to be inter-team events ? Question: Should we make all Badminton tournaments to be inter-team events? After reading all the different opinions from our members here at Badminton Central, I am now confused about the way how we look at Badminton tournaments. It appears that some of us are treating all tournaments are to be inter-team events. And some of us are treating inter-team events to be belonging to the likes of Thomas Cups, Uber Cup, Surdiman Cup, etc...only, and treating individual events to be belonging to the likes of Opens, Olympics, World Championships, etc... Just as a comparison, tennis players treat their Davis Cup as a inter-team event, and treat Open Tournaments as individual events. If all Badminton tournaments are to be inter-team events, then BWF will have to restructure how all Badminton tournaments should be conducted. It would be useless to have draws, if they are not for semi-finals or finals, making players play against their own countryman. ***
yes. that's the proper question here and one that will hopefully rectify some of the differences we have seen. and i am afraid there is no simple answer. 1) the most simple cases are SS and open tournaments. they appear to be individual tournaments. there are no limitation on players per country, and the draws are only based on world ranking. however, there are two clinks to it. firstly, players must be entered via a national badminton association, eg. Chen Hong needs to be enrolled via Chinese BA. secondly and more subtly, most professional players are trained under the umbrella of their national badminton association so naturally they are not independent like tennis players. 2) the next case are "individual" events like the world championships and olympics, where the BWF has put artificial barriers on the number of entries per country. as LB has argued, when such limitation has been placed, it starts to put the event into the realm of being a team tournament, and starts to lose its "individualness". 3) and then there are the true team events like Thomas/Uber/Sudirman Cup which i believe have the least ambiguity and the least disagreement on their nature.
Question the chief coach's decisions on who to send to tourneys throughout the year (affecting their rankings along the way), not the rule that limits the number of participations. Besides, expanding the events to accomodate those 'who are still good' or 'may be good' is going to require more time and money in which I am pretty sure the participating nations & host country will want to minimise.
What does it mean? If there is a match and if apparently the players are fighting is good enough? For me, either you have an honest and fair match or you have nothing. Pre-determining the result or given a walkover makes not much of a difference, does it? And I repeat my question: is it China the only country pre-determining the result of a match? Is it really a problem fixing results in the badminton environment? Maybe we should start looking from the top, that is the BWF (is this the name?) itself.
Very well said. It is basically the problem with how badminton is governed and maybe also the root of current issue here. And since most badminton powerhouses, the players had been groomed by national organizations since young. For them maybe even more ambiguous whether badminton is a team or individual event..
Just my 5 cents-Looking.. ..and taking into consideration the strength and depth of CHN's (current) squad, esp. in the MS, WS and WD events, i think all 3 scenarios which kwun had presented could very well and would likely make all 3 scenarios a "team" event for the CHN squad. I mean, no matter if it's a regular "Individual" events (Open, SS tourneys, OG, WC) or those "True Team" events (TC & UC or SC), with the way CHN squad has been fielding their top ranked players in nearly every tourneys, would it be avoidable for their players not meet each other sooner or later?? Thus, would it be realistically possible for the CHN squad not to have those "so-called" WO, every so often??..
