Cock and Bull

I blame the organisers first and foremost. Fancy devising a tournament system (implemented for the first time at this particular Olympics) which not only encourages teams to play to lose, but actually rewards them for it making it easier to ultimately win gold! Aussie Coach Lasse Bundgaard ws quoted as saying 'If you can win a medal by losing, but not by winning, that's not a good situation to be in'.
Badminton has been part of the Olympics since its exhibition in 1972 at Munich and has caused few waves and generated little attention ever since amongst the wider sporting fraternity. I did not expect to be blogging about an event which only featured 16 entrants (the Women's Doubles). A quarter of those entrants are now disqualified. Badminton World Federation (BWF) did court controversy last year by seeking to implement a rule change which required female players to wear skirts (an idea lifted from something similar in Beach Volleyball and the 'Sepp Blatter school of sexual politics' - see also Horse Guard's Affair ). Unsurprisingly female players revolted and it did not happen. Otherwise they have flown under the media scrutiny radar.
Until now. Apparently the sport is rife with manipulation. Not for match fixing in the betting sense. Very little money has ever been wagered on Badminton according to William Hill. At Athens in 2004 before the Women's Singles contest between 2 Chinese competitors, the Chinese Head Coach admitted instructing one of them to lose to the other. He reasoned that the other one had a better chance of beating their non Chinese final opponent. They did.
Chinese Weibo (Twitter equivalent) users were in essence asked this week the question 'Is it more important for us to ensure a gold winning opportunity or to protect China's image and to spread the Olympic Spirit? ' 70% of responses supported the actions of the players at London 2012. Those actions by 4 doubles teams (1 x Chinese,  2 x S.Korean and 1 x Indonesian) were to deliberately try to lose in order to play less fancied opponents in the knockout round. They were roundly booed by the crowd.

Black Card

BWF did not hesitate. They charged all 8 players with 'not using their best efforts to win' and 'conducting themselves in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport'. Does anybody disagree that trying to lose fits the bill. All 8 were disqualified from the competition and replaced by those who finished in 3rd place in the group stage.
Is this an overreaction as some have suggested? It is argued that what they were in fact attempting to do was to win by losing. Other comparable issues have been raised such as resting players to better prepare for the next stage and playing for a draw. Indeed the recent BBC drama 'Bert and Dickie' suggested that British rowers and their competitors had done a similar thing in the 1948 Olympics i order to reach the final by an elongated route. The ruse, seeking to qualify via the repercharge rather than directly did not succeed, although the British team did nonetheless win the gold.
I am not interested in other wrongs. The Olympic Games is about glory and competing. The actions of the Badminton players were not glorious and were not about competing. Any proportionate sanction which can preserve the ethos of the Games is to be welcomed and applauded. This blog salutes the BWF.