Olympic Badminton: Four Teams Thrown Out of Games for Trying to Rig Results

The four women’s teams at the centre of the shameful badminton display at the 2012 London Games have been thrown out of the Games according to the Financial Times.

To recap, the Chinese, South Korean and Indonesian teams were seemingly trying to deliberately lose the games that they were playing.

ABC News (Australia) reported that:

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“Spectators at Wembley Arena jeered China's world champion doubles pair Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, and South Korean duo Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, as all four players took turns at missing routine shots to concede points in the match.”

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While officials tried to figure out how to deal with the ridiculous behaviour, a second match between South Korea's Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jing and Indonesian pair Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari repeated the performance.

So bad was the performance that at one stage officials threatened to disqualify both pairs in the second game, according to the same ABC News report.

Desperate appeals by coaching staff eventually saw the decision reversed and the teams went on to play out the remainder of the game with a little more respect for their sport.

That wasn’t to be the end of the matter, however.

The World Badminton Federation charged all eight female players with misconduct on Wednesday after four Olympic doubles teams had attempted to "throw" matches to secure a more favourable draw later in the tournament.

The Huffington Post reports "The pairs have been charged ... with 'not using one's best efforts to win a match' and 'conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport'.”

Following a disciplinary hearing, all four teams were found guilty of the charge and thrown out of the Games.

The Financial Times reports that “Lord Coe, chairman of London’s organising committee, called the incident “unacceptable.” “Who wants to sit through something like that?” he added.”

The move sets a stunning precedent, but absolutely upholds the Olympic ideal of fair play and integrity.