3:41 pm
Aug 1, 2012


Poll: Were Badminton Actions Fair?

    • I fairly shocked that 54 percent of you thought losing on purpose was a good strategy. But, when one considers the kind of people who pickup the WSJ, I am not surprised. You all share the same mindset that almost destroyed the United States economy during the Great Recession.

    • John,

      Did it occure to you that the 54% result are from members of China’s 50 cent party?

      As an American, I can tell you we find such tactics deplorable in any sporting event!

      In my opinion, the IOC should remove Badminton from future Olympics because of these teams from China, South Korea, and Indonesia making a mockery of the sport!

    • LOL yeah, if they win, they must be doping. If they lose, they are a disgrace.

      I got one for you, if you think Chinese actually care what you or the WSJ thinks, you are a tard.

    • Right, because when Chinese news sites have a poll in Chinese, half the voters are Americans….

      Your logic is obviously helping the US economy, all the way down the drain.

    • Well, what do you expect from a country like China where losing to secure a better matchup is a strategy!

      Just send them packing back home to mainland China in shame!


      Just send them packing back home to mainland China in shame!

    • Yeah, because ponzi schemes are a better strategy.

    • In that case, China deserves a Gold metal in Men’s Basketball for losing too!

    • If the system provides a greater incentive to lose than to win, and we call this cheating, then we might as well just award medals to the stupidest athletes. In any case, do they not still aim to win eventually? Up until then, this is just choosing your opponents—a move which would be considered entirely sensible in any other field.

    • 7:06 pm August 1, 2012

      Another viewpoint is that China has turned the game of ‘Badminton’ into the sport of ‘Chinese Manipulation!’ Either way, it’s sad for the Chinese to once again, ruin the ‘Spirit of the Games’ in the Olympics!

    • China once again in controversy. Ye, a female swimmer who suddenly swims faster times than all the male swimmers in London. Now we have the Chinese Badminton pair who played like they belonged in the Special Olympics, so that they wouldn’t have to face the Chinese No. 2 Badminton pair in the knockout rounds!

      Thank you China, for truely showing to what great lengths a country will do to win Gold Medals………..

    • the chinese posters who don;t have a clue about what is so wrong with their team’s actions, and their badminton coach who thought this was funny, show more clearly than anything or anyone why people are still convinced that ye shiwen doped. sportsmanship means nothing. honor means nothing. winning is all that matters. so of course they will cheat if an opportunity pops up.

    • the US posters who don;t have a clue about what is so wrong with their media’s actions, and their swimming coach who thought this was funny, show more clearly than anything or anyone why people are still convinced that Phelps doped. sportsmanship means nothing. honor means nothing. winning is all that matters. so of course they will cheat if an opportunity pops up.

    • Jealousies are high against China’s economic achievements and every things else. With their athletes winning metals, there are going to be more measures to stamp their successes. Remember that the Europeans, especially Cameron, the forever-queen and for-never-king, rule the world and the Chinese can’t come in even to be second.

      So lose a few to tame down the anti-China feelings. Right?

    • It’s one thing to have a 6 year old lip sync, it’s beyond appalling to have your legendary, worshiped, king of the music industry Paul McCartney lip sync. They even knighted him for his “achievements”. At the end of his career, in the UK’s big event, this is what he and the Brits will be remembered for.

    • I bet these dbag posters also think you should go to war and die for your country.

      As one of your betters pointed out, you are supposed to make the other bastages die for theirs.

    • America must be such a nice place.

      You don’t have any jobs, you can live in your parent’s basement, and you can blame the world for your troubles. If they disagree, you just send some bombers. Making bombs and bombers creates jobs, so nobody in America complains that it’s wrong to bomb others, you get to call it spreading freedom.

      Don’t worry, we will keep working so you won’t ever have jobs, and you can continue to write your angry little blogs in your mom’s basement all day.

    • I believe your president, Mr. George W. Bush, called it strategery. :)

    • It’s of course a disgrace, and the chinese has been using this tactic in Badminton in many years. The point is thats this behavior put a shadow of the quality of many great chinese players. Lin Dan one of the best male players ever has rightly criticized their decision.

    • It must suck to be you, whining when others win, and whining when others lose.

      I guess that’s about all you can do when you don’t have a job and your country sucks at everything.

    • I wonder if that Anonymous loser from China finally feels like a ‘dope’ himself, now that his team from China has been disqualified?

      The teams from South Korea and Indonesia begun to ‘lose intentionally’ after the Chinese pair first threw their match in order to obtain a more favorable draw!

      So yeah! China should be blamed for starting this fiasco!

    • So will the IOC take away past Chinese medals in Badminton now that the Chinese have been disqualified for using this tactic in previous Olympics?

      That would be fair since China had their 2000 Women’s Gymnastic team and individual medals taken away for cheating in the Sydney Games.

    • The set-up of the tournament creates the perverse incentive to throw matches that China and then the others fell for.

      If I were Chinese, I’d be more concerned at the abysmally poor level of logic, reason and command of facts that afflict nearly every PRC person who comes on sites like these and makes comments in English. (Though in Chinese on most domestic subjects many are quite sharp and accurate.) Chinese netizens are a laughing stock abroad and find no defenders even when the (possibly) unfair accusation that they are paid government trolls is leveled at them. Raise your game by seeking truth trough facts!

    • To play against your own interest is like to ask for self-incrimination.

    • Oh my! China at the center of another scandal in the Olympics!

      I’m totally shocked!!! :)

    • Luis Suarez intentionally handballed on the goalline in 2010, which ensured Uruguay to advance to the world cup semi-finals. FIFA didn’t hand out any punishment to the team. So why make a big ruckus now? These players are just playing within the rules of the sport in order to get the ultimate prize, which, sadly, is how sports work nowadays.

    • It’s definitely dishonorable of the Chinese players. They forgot what they really want to win–respect and honor, not a medal. Their behavior will definitely not earn them respect or honor. They insulted the audience’s intelligence and wasted their time and ticket fare. I feel deeply disturbed by what they did.

      That being said, I feel something is wrong with the rules. If any of these teams had tried to be honest, they would be punished by loosing its odds of winning. This is not reasonable. Good rules should not punish people being honest. Good rules should induce people to be honest instead of dishonest. It’s desirable to have honest people, but relying on people’s honesty is definitely a loophole of rules. For example, how about we just rely on people’s honesty and abandon all the doping tests? I remember something to the effect “don’t test people’s morals–they are too weak to pass the tests.”

    • Can someone tell me why these Chinese Korean and Indonesian players were expelled, but the Japanese coach of the soccer team was not, even as he told his team not to score (game was 0-0) so that they didnt have to travel to a far away site to play a match (which I assume would tire the players and be a bad tactical situation)? Isnt the idea the same…creating the best situation for your team(s) and maximizing your chances of winning the best medal? Why punish these and not the japanese?

    • How do you know what the soccer coach told his team, unless you made it up.

    • Leave it to WSJ propaganda to make up their crockery and couldn’t get their story right. Let’s get this straight, the only reason why they ‘deliberately’ throw the game is that the 2 teams from the same country want to face other thus eliminate one of them. Second, the story with South Korea vs China thing is only half of the story.

      The other half of the story has nothing to do with China at all with the where South Korea deliberately throw their game to Indonesia so they won’t be facing the other South Korea team. In this case, it is all South Korea’s fault because Indonesia having only one team, have no incentive to throw their game.

      Going back to the main story, the incident with with the 4 teams involves with the 2 South Korean Teams in both cases. Both South Korea and Indonesia file a complaint to the IOC while China didn’t do that. Instead they manned up about this and blamed on the 2 Chinese players for their unsportsmanship. Also to note that in the Men’s badminton double, the Chinese teams didn’t throw off their games because the 2 Chinese teams are actually facing each other. So it seems to me that it is more like a stunt for South Korea as a cheap tactic to try to get their 2 teams in the medal stands.

    • There is still an incentive for Indonesia to throw the match as this is only the group stage and both opposing teams don’t want to face a stronger opponent in the next round.

      No point for the pot pointing finger at the kettle.

    • Really? Calling out other people that are anon when you don’t use your own name? Can you ever stop failing?

      And speaking of honor, that’s how the banks, Maddoff, Standord, unions, etc, etc, etc “won” right? Too bad your economy is still in the dumpster after these honorable wins. You and a few million like you are why the US is doing so poorly lately. Get out of your mom’s basement and educate yourself, at least to a point where not every sentence you utter is a demonstration of how far your country has fallen.

    • If the athletes need to be punished, the rule makers at the Badminton Association should be punished, too. Their rules unfairly disadvantage the most competent teams, inducing the kind of strategic behaviors you observe.

    • Allow countries to only send their best team, and no second team !

    • Was it because you were so honorable that you lost the Vietnam war? The war in Somalia? You are still trying to “win” in Iraq and Afganistan after TEN years. The rest of the world just calls it dumb and laugh at you.

    • The Chinese coach should take 100% of the blame.

      He knew the Chinese pair was not playing at their best, but still encouraged their behaviour instead of demanding that they step up their game.

    • Why? Because a coach should not want his players to win the gold medal?

      Fess up, are you a tard or a racist?

    • @ Mike,

      The difference is that China started to ‘lose on purpose’ to manipulate the outcome of the Badminton quarterfinals. With China’’ 2nd Badminton pair unexpectedly losing their match, this meant that China’s 1st and 2nd pairs would have been playing each other in the knockout rounds! If China’s 1st pair ‘lost’ to the South Koreans, it would have influenced the draw in China’s favor for a Gold medal match up instead, guaranteeing them the Gold and Silver Medals!

      This is what started this fiasco, as then South Korea and Indonesia then attempted to manipulate their match to avoid playing China’s number one Badminton team in the knockout rounds!

      In the case of Japan’s soccer coach Norio Sasaki, he admitted he told the team to play for a ‘tie’ but not to ‘intentionally lose’ in order to influence the future outcome of the quarterfinals, the purpose was so that Japan could stay in Wales the rest of the way and avoid travelling to Scotland for the quarterfinals. While I agree in spirit the Japanese didn’t play to win, you didn’t see them ‘intentionally lose’ their match like the Chinese Badminton team either did you? FIFA cleared Japan of corruption and/or trying to influence their matches to illegally influence another Olympic team’s outcome in the draw!

      The US soccer team also took it easy in their match against North Korea to ‘save their energy’ for the quarterfinals, but again, the difference is because the US already had the North Korean team beat by the second half of play. So while the Chinese Badminton team also claimed this was their strategy too, the difference is that you also didn’t see the US attempting to ‘INTENTIONALLY LOSE’ their soccer game to influence the future outcome of another teams draw in the finals!

      Understand now the difference between real strategy vs China’s manipulation in Badminton?

    • So what loopy?

      They intentionally lose one round so they can get a gold medal. It’s called losing a battle to win a war. It’s the destination that matters.

      Just like the US is invading Iraq to get cheaper oil. Dead Iraqis are fine as long as oil prices are stable. Bush even promoted himself as a hero for doing it.

      Tuck that racist back in, it’s showing.

    • http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/724758.shtml

      “The behavior of Yu Yang and Wang Xiao violated the principles of the Olympic Movement and went against the spirit of fair play. The Chinese Olympic Committee has always been firmly against any conduct that is against sportsmanship.”

    • The Chinese OC is showing respect and class, just like when Brits accepted the decision get a bronze instead of silver. Something that is completely opposite of Balding and Leonard’s actions.

    • @The Real OODA loop STAT
      The conditions are different, because in Japan or US case there were NO INCENTIVES TO LOSE. Do you honestly believe that when there is an INCENTIVE TO LOSE Japan and US would have done the same? It is like in a war, if you have two paths, both lead to enemy’s castle but the army in one path is particularly stronger. If you have the choice (to lose the game) in order to choose the easier enemy, conserve your energy, and fight the final battle at the castle, wouldn’t want to lose?! Lose to win, this is the strategy these 4 pairs used. Stop blaming the Chinese, or the Korean, or the Indonesian. It is ultimately the fault of game rules.

    • They use this silly rule in order to sell more tickets, which is indeed against the Olympic spirit.
      Imaging that the FIFA modified the soccer rules in an effort to make soccer more interesting therefore they can make more money: two teams must exchange the goal keepers and the goal keeper must do their best to guard their opponent’s net. What the goal keepers should do?

    • 7:40 pm August 2, 2012
      WSJ reader who seldom comments,

      So basically, you are alright if you bought a ticket at Olympic event and had to watch the Chinese ‘lose intentionally’ as a farce in order to avoid playing against their own number 2 Badminton pair in the knockout rounds?

      I suppose you wouldn’t ask for your money back if you witnessed the whole laughable display by the Chinese Badminton team either…………………………………………………………….would you!?

    • 7:40 pm August 2, 2012
      @WSJ reader who seldom comments

      US plays to win in Soccer game against North Korea, while China ‘loses intentionally’ to manipulate their opponents draw in the knockout rounds!

      Do everyone here a favor and stick to seldom comments, as US and Japan would never ‘intentionally land illegally ose’ an Olympic match as the Chinese did………………………………………which made South Korea and Indonesia attempt the same so-called ‘Chinese Strategy’ in Badminton!

    • Have China refund the money back to those who bought tickets for 2012 Olympics, as people surely didn’t intend to by tickets to China’s Special Olympics event! :)

    • If you watch such a laughable game, I DO suggest you ask the british olympic organizer for a refund. They are making money by ruin the game.

    • You people are aware that Olympic athletes don’t owe you anything, right? They have a duty to try their best to win a gold medal without breaking any rules. They do not have a duty to entertain you. Sports have always had a strategic component to them. Divers don’t open up with their most complex dives. Boxers and MMAers don’t start off going all out, instead they spend the first round testing each other out. Zanetti who the world loved for his upset of Chen Yibing last night had as his official strategy purposefully scoring low so he’d go last in the still rings finals.

      Until any of you can tell me how badminton was any different, stop showing your ignorance to the world.

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