Match Fixing at the London Olympics 2012 - players disqualified
Eight badminton players disqualified from Olympics for match-fixing!
LONDON Eight players were disqualified from the Olympic badminton tournament Wednesday, including the top-ranked womens doubles team from China, after accusations they deliberately tried to lose their matches Tuesday.
The removal of four womens pairs came after the Badminton World Federation determined the pairs had been trying to manipulate their place in the round-robin standings in an attempt to choose their opponents in the knockout phase of the tournament.
Chinas Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, the world doubles champions, were accused of throwing their match against South Koreas Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na to avoid facing Chinas second pair before the final. The second Chinese team lost unexpectedly to a Danish team Wednesday morning, setting off a chain of events that enraged fans and embarrassed the sport.
Wang and Yu started making uncharacteristic mistakes against the Koreans, serving into the net and hitting shots wide. Their opponents followed suit, both teams were warned by the referees and, after Jung and Kim won 21-14, 21-11, the players were jeered off the floor. The longest rally in their match, according to The Associated Press, was four strokes. Later, a second South Korean team Ha Jung Eun and Kim Min Jung tried to lose to an Indonesian team to avoid facing Wang and Yu on the knockout stage.
Its depressing, Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Olympics organizing committee, said Wednesday. I mean, who wants to sit through something like that?
The badminton federation disqualified Wang and Yu, both Korean teams and Indonesias Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari. South Korea and Indonesia are appealing.
The South Koreans blamed the Chinese players for initiating the match manipulation. If they played right, the Chinese team, this wouldnt happen, Korean coach Sung Han-kook told reporters. So we did the same.
Some suggested the introduction of a round-robin tournament, rather than a straight knockout tournament, led to the controversy.
Pairs were divided into four divisions for the preliminary round, with each team playing all of the other teams in its group to determine rankings for the knockout phase of the event. Eight of 16 teams were to advance.
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