Badminton hits the headlines and all for the wrong reasons. What has unfolded in the round robin games is a situation which rares it's head regularly in sport and is one which needs to have a hard line stance to punish those involved.
With the final round robin games occurring in the women's doubles matches the dreaded term "it's a fix" was occurring. With the final standing all but decided for two teams, the final round robin matches decided who they faced in the next stage, the ugly situation occurred. In one match the top seeded team form China decided that the crowd didn't deserve to see a quality game and attepted to throw the match so they wouldn't have to meet fellow Chinese team mates until the final. Their opponents from South Korea responded in kind and a farcical game resulted. The crowd was booing and badminton now has a tarnished record. Once the officials stood in, things turned to normality of sorts and the Chinese team ended up winning, but with part of the game played under farcical standards surely the only result should have been to disqualify both teams.
The same situation then occurred in a game between another South Korean team and an Indonesian team where both were trying to lose. In this case the official stood in and disqualified both teams, only to go weak and reverse the decision. Surely the officials need to make an investigation in the the actions that occurred and make a stance. The only decision that I can see sense with is automatic disqualification for all four teams in trying to fix the result of the tournament.
What makes it worse is that further investigation into China and badminton shows a long history of manipulation. Maybe a strong message needs to be sent to a country that has everyone scared to offend or upset them.
And for those who think Australia could be going better, think of the poor hosts who are yet to win a gold medal.
Finally common sense has been applied. The eight players have all been disqualified after a disciplinary hearing at the request of the Australian team. Australian badminton officials should be congratulated for standing up to the powerhouse nations of this sport and condemning them to Olympic history as cheaters. What needs to be seen know is a continuation of fair play practices throughout world sport. And those who have not seen footage of this event need to do so. Once you have seen footage you will understand what a joke these so called athletes made of a world class competition.
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