LONDON (AP) — Eight female badminton players, including the reigning world champions from China, face a disciplinary hearing on Wednesday after being charged with trying to throw their matches at the London Olympics to secure an easier matchup in later rounds.
The Badminton World Federation said in a statement it had charged the doubles players from China, South Korea and Indonesia under its players’ code of conduct 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.”
A spokeswoman for the federation, Gayle Alleyne, declined comment on possible sanctions ahead of the disciplinary hearings.
The doubles pairs were all due to compete in quarterfinals Wednesday afternoon. Spectators at London’s Wembley Arena booed when they realized players were apparently deliberately trying to lose.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency cited an unnamed spokesman for the Chinese delegation as saying the delegation was taking the incident seriously and had ordered its own investigation.
“The Chinese delegation will handle this case according to the results of the investigation into this match,” the spokesman said.
Chinese players were accused of starting a domino effect by deliberately losing a game on Tuesday. In badminton, teams play in a round-robin format, and aren’t knocked out if they lose an early game. A loss can lead to an easier opponent in later games.
World doubles champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China and their South Korean opponents Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na were booed loudly by the crowd after dumping serves into the net and making simple errors like hitting the shuttlecock wide.
The longest rally in their first game was only four strokes. The umpire warned them and tournament referee Torsten Berg spoke to all four players but it had little effect. At one stage Berg showed a black card – which usually means disqualification – but the game continued.
Eventually, the Chinese women lost 21-14, 21-11 and both pairs were jeered off the court.
The teams had already qualified to move on, but the result ensured that the top-seeded Wang and Yu will avoid playing their No. 2-seeded Chinese teammates until the final.
The problem snowballed in the next women’s doubles match between South Korea’s Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung and Indonesia’s Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii. Both teams were also warned for deliberately losing points in a match the Koreans won 18-21, 21-14, 21-12. The crowd voiced its displeasure again.
“If they play right, the Chinese team, this wouldn’t happen,” said South Korea head coach Sung Han-kook. “So we did the same because we don’t want to play Korea. Nobody likes playing against strong players.”
Yu said they were only trying to save energy for the knockout rounds starting on Wednesday.
“We would try hard in every match if they were elimination games,” she said. “Because they are group stage that’s why we are conserving energy.
“If we’re not playing the best it’s because it doesn’t matter – if we’re the first or the second (in the group) we’re already through. The most important thing is the elimination match tomorrow.”
The South Koreans filed a protest with the referees.
“It’s not like the Olympics spirit to play like this,” Sung Han-kook said. “How could the No. 1 pair in the world play like this?”
Australian coach Lasse Bundgaard blamed the group format for the controversy.
“It’s not good when you create a tournament where the players are put in this situation,” he said. “If you can win a medal by losing, but not by winning, that’s not a good situation to be put in.”
Beijing badminton silver medalist Gail Emms said the games had been embarrassing to watch, and that action needed to be taken against the players involved.
“This is London 2012,” Emms said. “For the future of our sport and the Olympic Games something needs to be done.”
