To me, its totally not fair on the players.. Because the rules of the games were made such a way that it allows it to happen.. I dun see clubs getting DQ for playing a weaker team when they have qualified... So I can totally understand what the 8 players were thinking... BWF is just trying to cover up for their mistakes and the opposition of other players
My take is that BWF is responsible for this fiasco in implementing a round robin system. Prior to the Games BWF was warned by many ex-officials of the almost certainty of match-fixing with the round robin system but it chose to ignore them. The players are not the prime guilty parties, just very competitive athletes wanting to gain a competitive edge. That is why there are four pairs from 3 countries that were involved, and all from the better players and not from lesser players. The only misconduct they are guilty of is to violet the BWF rule of not trying their best to win. But this rule may be good and sound but the silly introduction of the round robin "weakens" the credibility of this rule somewhat because it encourages the better players to fix matches for a competitive advantage. The sackings may be correct but for a political reason and that is to save badminton from being kicked out of future Olympics. But the BWF group of decision makers who opted for the round robin must also be sacked, not now but later. This solution holds every party responsible with the biggest chop for the BWF head.
Yeah BWF what were you thinking? Can't treat these players like adults, or expect them to be professional. Bad, bad BWF! Bad boy.
Yes, I believe BWF should treat this players as little kids... BWF cannot put the sweets on the floor and expect the players not to take it. The sweets must be lock up...
When we say playing a game, it consists of physical aspect as well as strategy aspect. The system of rule for this olympics games for badminton reward players who lose the game in order to advance. Therefore it encourage players to use strategy to lose the games in order to advance easier. The goal for them to lose the game is still to achieve higher level rather than just to throw the games negatively. I think the audience also over reacted. If they want to watch exciting games in the Semifinal and Final, they should expect players reserved their best for the later stage. None of the swimmers in the games swim in full strength in the heats. They reserved their energy. They can't just disqualify players because they are saving energy for the later more important matches. Personally I think BWF didn't make a wise decision. The decision was so rush and was made without thinking of consequences. If BWF want to punish somebody, I think that they should start from BWF itself rather than to remove the top players from games. That decision certainly hurt the sport in Olympics. They removed two of top 4 pairs from the games and replace them with the pairs at the bottom of the groups. The level of the games at semifinal and final will drop significantly. What they present to the world at this year women double Final will be much lower standard. They are many alternative ways to deals with this. For example, they can fine the players or even the association for this "inappropriate" attitude towards the games rather than just bluntly disqualify them. Those players took years to pepare for this games. It is certainly very unfair to pay such a high price for faulty rule system.
this time the 8 girls took it too far... serve into the net, return 2-3 feet out with the max rally last 4shots... its like robbery in front of the police station... they force the police to act.
Agree totally with you here, a hefty fine to the teams in question probably would've been better. This is basically a knee jerk reaction by them just to save face. And also agree with what you said about fans over-reacting, just like in professional sports leagues, if a team's already qualified for post season and decided to field a farm team or lesser team for the final game or games, the fans probably will not boo their home team because they understand it is meaningless and there's post season hopes for that team.
i'm not agree with you. i think that it is a great idea for the player that are not well classified. Imagine. you make australia -> london just to play one match and be beaten against the world number 1. Like this you can play more matches and make more experience. Badminton is not only for the 3 or 4 top ranked players. I think it's a very good idea for our sport. We can't trash this out because the usual chinese cheaters made another stroke. Remember in 2004 with Zhou MI. She declared that she changed country because she was told to lose in the semis. BFW should have act after that declaration. They should have the courage to say: We remove the 2004 medal to zhang ning because of cheatering. Remember the AE final with Lin dan and chen jin. THey should have not allow Chen Jin to participate to the olympics. And what about the MS semi single in the 2008 OJ and all the walkover in 2011 and 2012.... The fact is that they keep their eye's closed because badminton is not a major sport in the world. But this time, it was at the olympics and all the press from all the countries speaks about that. They had no other choice to do disqualified them. If it had happened in Super series or world championship, they would have say nothing i think. Another problem is that the schedules were made badly. Why the matches that had connections weren't played in the same time to avoid some people to calculate ? Also another problem is that the best players plays against with each others at the last match. If the chinese an korean had meet in the first match, there wouldn't have been problems.For example in the european football championship, italy and spain who were the favorite of the group played the first match together….
1. DQing players doesn't resolve the problem when there is incentive to lose because of the setup. 2. it also denies fans of good matchups later in the tournament 3. i know i rather watch better badminton players at olympics. (I am stuck with WD bronze match if anyone wants that. Russia-Canada is not much better than club MD) 4. another example is korea throwing their group game at thomas cup by playing MD players in MS and vice versa. Do you DQ the whole team? 5. An alternative punishment is a heavy ($1+ million) fine because players are incentivised by money, which olympic medals would bring through bonuses and sponsorships. 6. fines against the federation and coaches would also highlight the systematic unsportsmanlike conduct is not the preserve of players, but shared by coaches and federations who will now get away scot-free.
Blame? I think the players are the victims here. I mean who should Wang/Yu be afraid of? Noone! they are by far the best pair in the world. That directs the spotlight directly back to the team manager, the famous and arrogant Li Yongbo. It shoul be him leaving the sport, not Yang.Next the BWF should blame them selves, for being so foolish to introduce a system of play that they themselves rejected in 2008 after Korea threw the team match against England in Thomas Cup to avoid meeting China. It's not suitable to wipe it all off on some 8 random players.Also BWF should blame themselves for not doing anything serious to chinese and korean match throwing for a decade. That has taken away creditbility that BWF will punish unsportsmanlike behaviour!
I'm not so sure fines will work. We are not talking about amateur players here. Many of the top players make a good living from badminton. They're backed by endorsements, government funded programs. Deep pockets. If you fine them, the organizations will just pay up and chalk it up to 'cost of doing business'. Fines would hurt the majority of the 'other' players, who devote a lot of time and personal financial resources just to get to London. Many participating are amassing huge debt to represent their country, but do so for the love of the sport. The most effective method of curtailing this kind of behavior is to withdraw their ability to participate in the Olympics. This should be effective towards players, coaches, national organizations and sports governing bodies. If this kind of behavior is allowed to continue at the top level, then people will take this as an acceptable practice and will implement this strategy in regional tournaments, club tournaments and school tournaments. Would we feel proud doing this for our kids in a elementary school tournament? Shame!
The kingpin admits it. Somebody's going to get hurt..fired http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/02/china-badminton-li-yongbo-london-olympics-blame_n_1731412.html
IMO, this whole episode is simply a culmination of years of nurturing a culture whereby players/teams can just "throw away" matches without harsh penalties from the governing body.
this whole episode reminds me of a movie called "A Few Good Men" by Tom Cruise. "We were just following orders."
1. sponsorship will naturally decrease for fined athletes. what business want to be associated with unsportsmanlike players? 2. national badminton associations also fight for funding with other sports, and will not risk unnecessary penalties especially as funding is more likely to be cut than increased for this bad advertisement for national image 3. fines are unlikely to be incurred by poorer players as they are not in position to throw games.
I kinda feel sorry for BWF. They are like a ground down teacher with little self respect left because their class just constantly takes the p**s out of them. Some associations just won't behave themselves, it's embarrassing. BWF should have found someone big enough to put them in their place a long time ago.
This is a result of China's drive to get as many medals as possible. The coach has likely been instructed by their Chinese Olympic committee or what-have-you to acquire as many medals as possible no matter what. China was being greedy trying to get both Gold and Silver for the Womens doubles event. I also think BWF is partly to blame for creating this system, it simply doesn't work because you have some countries that have multiple teams in the Womens doubles event. This is definately not the players fault, they have no choice but to comply with their coaches demand. If it was another country, it would probably be ok to disobey your coach, but them being from China, they simply don't have that freedom like most players have.
This article is quite good on the WD situation: http://www.mississauga.com/iphone/sports/article/1439126--disqualifications-simply-for-the-birdies
Let me ask you something, for tennis in Olympics, it's one loss and you're out. So if Federer for example loses in the first round than he's got nobody to blame but himself. But I'm pretty sure he's not thinking "oh it's a waste of my time" to go to London. Well you can basically insert any of the grand slam tennis tournment also. ESPN had an article about this as well that was pretty well written. http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/...minton-federation-ioc-really-pointing-fingers Also don't you think soccer/football in the world cup is a bigger stage than Olympics? In 1982 Austria scored first and beat Germany 1-0 but both teams can still advance with that result. Guess what happened afterwards, let's just say the ball went nowhere near the net of either team and Algeria was eliminated. Than they implemented the system where games are played at the same time. Austria and Germany wasn't expelled from the tournment and FIFA realized they messed up big and changed the way the tournment was played. We are in a very results based society so if the rules are in place to get a better result than teams/players will use it. And don't just say oh China is the cheaters etc they're in the position to do what they did because they're the dominating nation/team. If another country/team is in the same position they'll most likely be doing the same thing if it's within the context of the rules and it will give them the best results.