Funny story from the Olympics. Four badminton teams were DQ'ed for trying to lose on purpose to draw an easier match-up in the future rounds. In one of the matches, both teams were trying to lose ... lol ... must have been awesome to watch that.
Bizarre. Time to rethink the rules.
I saw some of the video yesterday. It was pretty blatant. So many serves were either put straight into the net or didn't even make it to the net it was hard to believe these were "true" olympians. I played better than that when I was in Jr. high school almost 50 years ago and still play better than that today.
Part of the oath they all take is about true "sportsmanship". IMO, if throwing a game were to be allowed in that context, then the 1919 Black Sox should have never had a problem throwing the World Series.
The problem is the format of the tournament.
Nowhere in sports should losing be the preferred option to advance to an easier round.
Similar to the way a professional team here gets it's first round draft pick....by finishing last.
I haven't followed the story but did hear a blurp about it. I do not know the dynamics of badminton.
It seems to me that it should not be a problem if they review their format.
You can seed teams by power rankings, you can award wins and losses on a differnt winning pt scale. You can have double elimination also.
But teams should not try to lose in an Olympic setting which is all about sprtsmanship and compr=etition.
They disrespected and were undignified in trying to lose.
The suspensions were correct. imo
> The problem is the format of the tournament.
>
>
> Nowhere in sports should losing be the preferred option to advance to an easier round.
>
> Similar to the way a professional team here gets it's first round draft pick....by finishing last.
I agree completely with this sentiment.
you've already lost if Badminton is what you do with your life.;-)
> you've already lost if Badminton is what you do with your life.;-)
Not if you live in China.
What happened was the world's most feared badminton team got upset in a earlier match, and therefore would be the bottom of the bracket, so a bunch of other teams wanted to be in the bottom of the bracket, too, so they would not meet them in the first rounds of the elimination matches.
