Thai Badminton Player Attacks Olympic Teammate After Wild Chase

*Update*

Another video of the fight has been spotted by Nick Zaccardi of NBC Sports that shows the entire conflict between Issara and Jongjit. This video is taken from another angle and includes the beginning of the fight and the throwing of a chair missed in the first video.

*End of Update*

The typically low-contact sport of badminton turned ugly Sunday when a pair of badminton teammates began fighting in the middle of a match at the Canada Open.

The incident involved Thai Olympic partners Bodin Issara and Maneepong Jongjit. The aggressor in this situation was Issara, according to Nick Zaccardi of NBC Sports, who dropped his racket midmatch and chased his teammate across the courts at the Richmond Olympic Oval. 

The pursuit came to a quick end, with Issara pulling Jongjit down onto the surface of an adjacent court and punching him in the back and the head. The two were eventually separated by stadium officials, and William Luk and Mike Hager of the Calgary Herald report that the tournament medical staff say Issara required two stitches to patch up a bleeding ear.

Both players were disqualified from the match, and it's unclear at this point whether any further disciplinary action will be taken by the event's governing bodies.

The exact cause of the meltdown has yet to be determined, but bad blood had been mixing between the two men from the very beginning of the match. 

According to the Herald, the pair were assessed a warning for an angry verbal exchange early on in the game and tempers flared as the two “glared at each other.”

Prior to the violent outburst, the two men had played well together, making it as far as the quarterfinals at the 2012 London Olympics before Issara allegedly “retired” from the sport to take care of his ailing mother. 

The truth of the matter, however, is that Issara didn’t retire at all. Rather, the man was “unhappy” training in Thailand’s badminton center and decided to pick up a teammate instead of continuing to play with Jongjit. 

Clearly, their reunion tour will put Guns N’ Roses to shame at this rate.

On Twitter, putting the “bad” in badminton. Sorry.

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