Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, who were robbed of their chance to compete for a gold medal at the London Olympics when the Badminton World Federation disqualified them (and three other teams) for intentionally trying to lose, were honored by the China’s General Administration of Sports on Friday.

Yu and Wang were among 100 players to receive “sports honors medals,” according to Xinhua.

The pair’s match-fixing scandal in London made their inclusion of the annual awards into doubt, but China’ s sports official emphasized that the sports honor medals were established for Chinese world champions – winners of Olympics, World Championships, World Cup in the year – and their coaches.

Yu and Wang entered the Olympics as the world’s top-ranked team, but a shocking loss in group play compelled them to make the strategic decision to tank in the final pool-play game, which would have determined seeding but little else. Seeking to avoid setting up a semifinal matchup with their countrywomen, Tian Qian and Zhao Yunlei, Yu and Wang intentionally lost — but only because their opponents from South Korea failed to lose better, since they were trying to tank as well.

It resulted in one of the most controversial decisions in the Games: four teams were disqualified from the knockout stage of the tournament. Tian and Zhao cruised the rest of the way to win gold.

Controversial women’s badminton duo honored by China’s sports governing body (Xinhua) (Photo via AP, after Yu (left) and Wang defeated Tian and Zhao at the finals of the Indonesia Open on June 17, 2012)

In an article published Saturday in the Sydney Morning Herald, South African Cameron van der Burgh admitted to cheating in his world-record-setting swim in the 100-meter breaststroke. Swimmers are only allowed one dolphin kick after entering the water and one kick after the turn, but van der Burgh copped to taking multiple — because “every swimmer does that,” he said.

“I’m not willing to sacrifice my personal performance and four years of hard work for someone that is willing to do it and get away with it,” he noted.

Whether you agree or not, knowing our culture of hand-wringing and insistence on moral and ethical conduct, this should have been a big deal, right? Everyone should have been talking about it? Instead, there has been radio silence across many major news outlets — not a peep from BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Daily Mail. People who were falling over themselves to condemn the badminton players who purposely tried to lose — which isn’t cheating, by the way — have decided van der Burgh’s actions weren’t a big deal. Because…? Do you want me to say it, or are we on the same page?

Only yesterday did NBC bring itself to report this matter, and wouldn’t you believe it? It references the Badminton World Federation’s decision to disqualify eight players ex post facto. Quoting:

Although there’s no way for FINA to review the race at this point and make adjustments to the finishing order, there is some precedent from the IOC to do so. Eight badminton players were kicked out of the Olympics last week after they were accused of deliberately not trying during matches to give themselves a lower seed in the later rounds – effectively securing an easier trip to the finals.

Just like the badminton case, the van der Burgh incident is a fair play issue. Since the race happened over a week ago, however, it’s looking less and less likely that the IOC will take any action.

Slate wrote about this incident on Tuesday, and noted, “It’s hard to blame the swimmers for dolphin-kicking up a storm. As with any other performance enhancer, the idea that the guy in the next lane is cheating exerts pressure to do it yourself, lest you drop out of medal contention.” Oh, so then it’s okay to cheat when other people cheat? So when Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli looked across the floor before their final, meaningless group play game and saw that their South Korean opponent wasn’t even warming up, and decided they would throw the game because their opponent had every intention of doing the same… that’s okay too, right?

Oh, it’s not? Hmm?

I don’t want to belabor my point. I’ve made it again and again, and you’re sick of hearing it. But I do want to hear from all you sticklers for the rules who made yourselves known around these parts recently. Van der Burgh broke the rule. What of it, should he be stripped of his gold medal?

My feeling is no — but then again, I thought the four badminton teams never should have been disqualified. It’s just that once you start ruling with an iron hand, it becomes increasingly difficult to relax your grip. Once you do, the questions arise, as do the accusations of hypocrisy, and racism, and thus begins the unraveling of your authority.

Now someone go tell the World Badminton Federation: bwf@bwfbadminton.org.

(H/T Alicia)

Badminton World Federation Chief Operating Officer Thomas Lund, Danish

Was a note proving injury all that was required to get the world’s No. 1 badminton team of Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli reinstated after their high-profile disqualification for match-fixing (and the DQs of three other teams)? I’ve emailed Thomas Lund, t.lund@bwfbadminton.org, and the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to find out, and will report back if someone replies.

I ask on the heels of a recent controversy involving Algerian long-distance runner Taoufik Makhloufi. Yesterday, he tanked his 800-meter qualifying heat — intentionally losing — in order to conserve energy for his 1,500-meter race, for which he ran the fastest overall time in a semifinal heat on Sunday. But the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF), as draconian as the BWF, decided to kick him out of the Games for not giving “a bona fide effort,” with one caveat:

The IAAF spokeswoman said he could be reinstated for Tuesday’s 1500m final if he could get a medical certificate from a local doctor.

Lo and behold, a few hours later, according to Reuters:

The Algeria team, upset that the IAAF had not spoken to Makhloufi, said the athlete had a knee injury and the decision was later reversed on medical grounds.

“After reviewing evidence provided by the LOCOG medical officer, the disqualification of (Taoufik Makhloufi) from further participation in the athletics competition of the 2012 Olympic Games has been revoked,” the IAAF said in a statement.

A knee injury. Hmm. That’s funny, because that’s the exact type of injury Wang Xiaoli reportedly sustained, causing her and teammate Yu Yang to not perform at their best in their final, worthless pool-play game.

As Deadspin’s Dom Cosentino puts it perfectly:

Olympic rules really are the best: Depending on the sport, when athletes try to compete by not competing, it’s either within the rules or something that won’t be tolerated. And some of those who are punished still get to continue, so long as they “prove” they were injured. Makhloufi’s 1,500 final is tomorrow. Provided his knee somehow holds up.

BWF: waiting on you.

China’s Lin Dan beat Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei 15-21, 21-10, 21-19 earlier today, becoming the first person to repeat as Olympic men’s badminton champion (he also beat Lee in the 2008 finals). That in itself could establish him as the best male badminton player of all time, but then you consider his 48 career titles, including four World Championships, and it’s apparent that he’s a once-in-a-generation player. And at only 28, he’s far from done.

But equally indisputable: Lee Chong Wei, who’s either 29 or 30, depending on how you count these things, is the world’s second best shuttler. It’s just unfortunate he’s Lin’s contemporary.

The match today was a gripping affair that saw Lin drop the first game and go down 8-5 in the third. In a pivotal moment, the head judge nearly botched a call, as his vision was obstructed on an out-of-bounds call. Lin protested, the officials reviewed, and the initial call was overturned. Instead of 9-5 to Lee, it was 8-6, and Lin scored the next three to pull ahead. From there, though, neither player gained more than a two-point advantage until the end, with Lee actually twice leading by two, 15-13 and 18-16.

Lin tied it back up, but the Malaysian rallied to regain a one-point lead, 19-18. With the finish line in sight – he was set to become Malaysia’s first-ever gold medal winner — Lee appeared to lose his nerve, at least momentarily. After a long rally, he misjudged a shot flying toward the far line, hoping it would go out. It wasn’t really close. With the game tied again at 19, Lin seized the moment and scored the next two to win.

Both athletes were gracious afterwards, as expected, considering they’re longtime friends. Lin invited Lee to his wedding, and said about him, “He’s such a brilliant rival that I am quite lucky. I treasure the opportunities of playing him.” And Lee said about Lin: “It was very hard to beat Lin. There is just one Lin Dan in the world and he is great.”

Lee, who collapsed in tears after the final game, had a tweet sent out via his official Twitter account saying, simply, “I’m sorry.” Malaysia would have none of it, quickly showering him with support (and retweeting that two-word message 10,838 times in less than six hours). We’ll end this post on that note — we can understand the joys of winning, but of feeling you’ve let down a nation, only to be propped back up and told you single-handedly brought together 28 million people? That’s a narrative only the Olympics can bring us, and the reason we watch.

Internationally famous Chinese man Yao Ming has been color-commentating the men’s basketball games on CCTV, but as has always been his case, he’s too intelligent and opinionated to be boxed in by his sport. Very recently, as reported by Reuters, he spoke on the record with Xinhua about the badminton and Ye Shiwen controversies:

“(The) same kind of things happen in basketball. It’s a simple question. Is the match-fixing scandal right? Does a gold medal (mean) more than anything else?”, Yao said.

“People have different attitudes to the Olympics and I must say some sports need to polish the rules. I feel really sorry for the punished players. They are the victims.”

About Ye Shiwen, the swimmer who shattered an Olympic world record, Yao makes a reference to Usain Bolt:

“I can understand the Americans who dominated the pool for decades. It’s a common reaction,” Yao said.

“It happened when (Jamaican sprinter) Usain Bolt emerged and it happened again with Ye.

“Ye jumped out from nowhere to take away the glories that the Americans thought belonged to them for a long time. It’s not a good feeling,” Yao added. “But I think the Americans were not gentlemenly when they said … that.”

On the badminton controversy, I’ll reiterate: you can hate on the players all you want and call their action despicable, but to disqualify them for simply trying to set up a more favorable elimination-round matchup — because isn’t the point of the event to win gold? — is unprecedented, subjective, and rash, and causes more controversy than it resolves. (If a British team was entangled in the controversy, would the BWF jumped straight to disqualification?) There are other ways of punishing players and national badminton federations to discourage players from doing this in the future, though the best solution still remains scrapping the awful tournament format, the blame for which lies squarely with the IOC and Badminton World Federation. The BWF indeed stole an opportunity from the teams it disqualified, specifically the No. 1 team in the world, Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, and everyone involved rightly should feel a little more cynical about the Olympics, which deserves to be about the athletes instead of overzealous officials.

We applaud Yao for his comments, and eagerly await his assessment of the winless men’s basketball team.

(H/T Tyler Cohen)

Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli were disqualified for match-fixing because they wanted to avoid facing Tian Qian and Zhao Yunlei in the semifinals, and now we know why. Tian and Zhao just won the gold medal, never dropping a set in any of their three knock-out round matches. They beat Japan’s Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa 21-10 25-23.

One wonders how Tian and Zhao ever lost in the group stage. You’ll recall that it was their defeat to Denmark’s Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Christinna Pedersen that precipitated the match-fixing scandal, as no one — least of all their countrywomen, who beat them in the finals of last year’s World Championships — wanted to face them before the gold-medal round. (In case you were wondering, Rytter Juhl and Pedersen lost in the quarters to Fujii and Kakiiwa.)

Chinese teams have now won women’s doubles gold at the last five Olympics. China is also two wins away from sweeping gold in all five badminton events. Reigning men’s singles Olympic champion Lin Dan goes up against Malaysian Lee Chong Wei at 8 pm Beijing time, and the men’s doubles team of Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng faces Denmark’s Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen at 9:15 pm.

We won’t take this opportunity to point out that the Badminton World Federation got its wish to see a non-East Asian team win a medal, nor address the theory that it disqualified four Asian teams for trying to lose — including two teams that actually won – to promote the sport in Europe. But we will point out that a quarterfinals featuring only one non-East Asian team was manipulated so that there were suddenly five. So, congratulations, Valeria Sorokina and Nina Vislova, Russians, for beating Alex Bruce and Michele Li, Canadians, for the bronze.

Hold the phones, everyone. This story isn’t as straightforward as we thought, and it doesn’t seem like Yu Yang completely agrees with the Badminton World Federation’s decision to disqualify her and teammate Wang Xiaoli for match fixing. (Also, she announced her retirement on Tencent Weibo, but we’ll get to that in a second.)

Yesterday on Tencent Weibo (Tuesday night London time), before BWF had passed judgment, reporter Zhang Nan posted (my translations; original message appears at bottom):

I just learned a piece of information from the team ~~ Wang Xiaoli injured her right knee in warmups before today’s competition ~ because they had already advanced out of the group stage, they held back* during the match ~ also discovered opponents basically didn’t warm up ~ understood they had no intention of winning the match ~ during the match the opponent first shaved a point ~ affected their [Chinese team's] state of mind ~ in end the led to today’s situation ~ if only there were nothing to Wang Xiaoli’s injury ~~

*Ed’s note: my translation of “控制,” which really means controlled/had control over.

Yu Yang replied to that message thusly:

Tomorrow is the knockout round, we don’t have much time to make adjustments. No matter the result, we’ll give it our all. Hope fans can understand our situation.

Over the course of the day, a whirlwind blew through the badminton world as BWF announced four pairs of teams would be disqualified from the women’s doubles tournament (but could continue in other badminton events). BWF posted its message under its official Tencent Weibo account, and two minutes later, Yu Yang replied with this bombshell:

This is my last competition. Goodbye Badminton World Federation, goodbye my beloved badminton.

We’re not sure what to make of her decision to retire, whether she’ll hold to it or not, considering she’s only 26 years old, and whether it’s a direct result of BWF’s decision. Earlier that day, she went on Chinese TV to issue what seemed like a sincere apology to fans for her and teammate Wang Xiaoli’s performance on Tuesday, when they purposely lost to South Korea’s Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na.

But soon after she announced her retirement, Yu Yang had something else to say, directed at BWF. Again, Tencent Weibo:

We were simply injured, simply chose to abandon the match within the rules. Simply to play better in the second phase of competition, the knockout rounds. This is the first time the Olympics changed the rules to have pool play before knockout rounds, do you guys understand an athlete’s injury? Four years of preparation and hard work with injury, (they) say it’s gone and our right to compete is gone. You guys ruthlessly* shattered our dreams. Situation’s just that simple, not complicated, but is so unforgivable.

*Ed’s note: or ruthlessly/mercilessly

That message has gotten 43,776 reposts and replies, most of them very supportive of Yu.

Yu won the women’s doubles gold medal at the 2008 Olympics and bronze in the mixed doubles, and also won gold in the women’s doubles at last year’s World Championships in London.

UPDATE, 2:28 pm: Clarification on the headline: Yu never personally said her team’s performance was due to Wang’s injury. Obviously someone close to the situation fed that information to the journalist though, and Yu, in her reply to Zhang Nan and later message, implies that Wang’s injury at least caused them to not try their hardest. She does not, of course, ever deny throwing the match, and her televised apology to Chinese fans really does seem sincere.

Journalist Zhang Nan’s injury announcement and Yu Yang’s response about the next day’s competition:

Yu Yang’s message to the BWF:

When the Badminton World Federation (BWF) announced yesterday it was disqualifying four teams from the women’s doubles competition for trying to lose, including the world’s top team, China’s Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, I have to admit my first reaction was fear that this would create more controversy than it would resolve. (Here are match “highlights.”) Would the conversation turn into a cultural discussion about how Asians are more apt to “game the system” instead of competing with this “Western idea” of “Olympic spirit”? (I hope we never see that argument, but it seems inevitable that someone will make it.)

I also happen to disagree with BWF. Athletes aren’t robots: they’re rational people who are capable of analyzing a tournament format and choosing to maximize their chances of winning. If that means throwing a match, who are we to step in and act offended, like, “How dare you introduce chaos into our perfectly tidy system?”

Anyway, it turns out the majority of Chinese fans disagree with me. Sina recently posted a poll that asked, “How do you feel about the suspected match-fixing badminton players being disqualified from the Olympics?” As of 7:45 this morning, more than half a million people had weighed in, and the conclusion is clear:

That’s 242,623 respondents — or 46.9 percent — who support the decision to disqualify the players. (Translations on the answer choices are mine.) By contrast, only 26.9 percent oppose the decision.

Chinese coach Li Yongbo recently issued a very straightforward and sincere apology for the team’s actions and not upholding the “competition’s spirit.” You can watch that here. He said because of the new rules this year — pool play is new; previous tournaments featured one big bracket, like in tennis — the team didn’t have a full understanding of the format. I’m reading a little bit into his answer here, but he thought — as he should have, I might add — the point of the pool play was to set the teams up for the best possible outcome in the elimination portion of the competition. Li comes off as a reasonable and articulate man, and the apology really was pitch-perfect.

Wang and Yu have also apologized on camera. Yu said they violated the Olympic spirit, and Wang vowed to compete her hardest from here on out.

UPDATE, 12:31 pm: Here’s the link to the poll (click “I want to vote” [我要投票] to participate; I just voted OPPOSE).

UPDATE, 1:30 pm: Yu Yang announces her retirement on Tencent Weibo and speaks out against BWF, and a Chinese journalist reports that Yu and Wang’s decision to tank was influenced by a knee injury Wang sustained during warmups.

Courtesy of Sina, here’s actual Olympic footage! UPDATE, 12:06 pm: They’ve disabled the embed. But you can watch on Sina’s website if you’re within the mainland.

The players in the above have, as reported, been disqualified from the tournament. The Indonesian team withdrew its appeal, and the two South Korean teams’ appeals were rejected, according to AP.

The competition was to continue later Wednesday with four previously eliminated teams in the quarterfinals. Russian pair Valeria Sorokina and Nina Vislova, and Canadian team Alex Bruce and Michele Li now advance from Group A. Australian pair Leanne Choo and Renuga Veeran and South African duo Michelle Edwards and Annari Viljoen go through from Group C.

Finally, we’d like to once again point to the eminently reasonable words of Lin Dan, China’s Olympic champion in men’s singles:

“Especially for the audience,” he said through an interpreter before the disqualifications were announced. “This is definitely not within the Olympic spirit. But like I said before, it’s not one-sided. Whoever sets the rule should make it knockout so whoever doesn’t try will just leave the Olympics.”

Bazuki Muhammad/Reuters

If you’re not up to speed on badminton’s big scandal, first go read this. And then realize that the IOC and Badminton World Federation just dropped the biggest bombshell of these Games by disqualifying four pairs of teams from the quarterfinals for match-fixing, including two teams — both South Korean (what is it with South Koreans and controversy?) — that won their matches. Read on.

Two articles about the controversy. First, from the New York Times:

Because the Chinese so dominate the sport and are so numerous in the tournament, they have incentive not to play one another when possible.

And because they are so good, teams from other countries do their best to avoid the Chinese until there is no choice.

Some former players and commentators in Britain called the play unsportsmanlike and an affront to the fans who paid dearly to see top-ranked players compete. But some of them accepted that players should not be blamed for playing strategically to win.

Other players blamed the badminton federation for not anticipating this kind of strategy when it redesigned the tournament.

“They should have thought ahead and seen that this kind of situation might happen and thought what they could have done to avoid this situation and stop it happening again in the future,” Lin Dan, the world’s best men’s singles player, who is from China, said after winning a match Wednesday. “Think in the U.K., would your football team want to meet Spain in the first round? Athletes think for themselves and would have their best interests at heart.”

Next, the Guardian:

The incidents prompted Gail Emms, the former British badminton star, to tell the BBC: “You cannot do this in an Olympic Games, this is something that is not acceptable … it was just disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful.”

Emms said that the potential for spot-fixing was raised in a managers’ meeting on Monday but that the referee had dismissed their concerns.

“All the managers got together with the referee and said: ‘Look, this has happened; in Group D you will find some very dodgy matches going on in the evening because of it’ and the referee laughed and said: ‘Oh don’t be silly,’” she said. “And the managers said: ‘We know the game, we know the players and we know the teams and we know this is going to happen.’”

She added: “Badminton, in the Olympics and in all tournaments across the circuit, it’s never played in a group stage, it’s always a straight knockout system and for some reason they decided that the Olympic Games in 2012 should be this group stages.

“And as soon as I heard that I went: ‘It’s going to bring up match-fixing,’ that was my first thought, and lo and behold last night that is exactly what happened.”

On Ye Shiwen’s victory yesterday, first we turn to Daily Mail:

After last night’s race, Miss Ye faced  a barrage of questions about alleged drugs use.

Speaking in her native language, she said at a press conference: ‘Of course I think this is a little bit unfair for me. However, I was not affected by that.’

She added: ‘I think that in other  countries, other swimmers have  won multiple golds and no one ever criticised them. How come people will  criticise me just because I have won multiple medals?’

She denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs, saying: ‘Absolutely not.’

The teenager said she had trained for five hours a day for nine years.

Olympic organisers warned that if there were drug cheats at London 2012 ‘they will be caught’, while Chinese team officials point out Miss Ye had been repeatedly tested and never failed.

And from Blogging is Pointless:

On the face of it, those statistics do look quite damning, don’t they? But, if you recall, I said at the top of this post that this was a story about two girls, not one, and it’s now time to talk about the other amazing teenaged Olympic champion swimmer at these games. She’s a 15 year old Lithuanian called Ruta Meilutyte, and she won gold in the women’s 100m breaststroke last night. This was a popular result in the Aquatic Centre, because Meilutyte lives in Plymouth, and is trained by English coach Jon Rudd. No-one expected her to make the final in London (never mind win a medal) because only a year ago, she set a new national record of 1:07.96, which would barely have got her into the semifinals in London. However, she won her semifinal in a time of 1:05.21 (a European record), and then went on to take gold in the final. Her win came as a massive shock, and was greeted rapturously by Clare Balding, who described it as “her favourite non-British story of the Games so far”. To the best of my knowledge John Leonard has yet to comment.

I want to be clear about this – I am not accussing Ryta Meilutyte of doping. I think she’s a phenomenal athlete, and I was as happy as anyone to see her win, and laughed like a drain at her brilliant post-race interview. But Ruta Meilutyte has improved her times by four percent in the last year. Ye Shiwen improved her times by two percent in the last two years. And yet, if I google “Ruta Meilutyte doping”, every first page result links to a news piece that talks about Ruta winning, and Ye doping.

The story of a Chinese gold medalist who went to Kazakhstan: “July 29^th, Zulfiya, the Kazakhstan woman weight-lifting athlete, broke the world record and became the champion, earning the second gold medal for Kazakhstan. However, no one knew that this Kazakhstan weightlifter was a former Chinese athlete — former Hunan player, Zhao Changning (赵常宁).” [China Hush]

Wu Jingbiao’s tears of agony, examined. “While initial reports centered on possible causes of the unexpected defeat, Wu’s dramatic reaction soon came to dominate media attention. Sportscn.com was among the first to wonder why tears of frustration flowed when a silver medal should be celebrated – ‘to participate in the Olympic Games,’ the report opined, ‘is itself the highest honor.’ // …Users expressed sympathy for the distraught weightlifter rather than blame. Many of them wished Wu Jingbiao more progress in the future. Some netizens found it hard to understand why Wu Jingbiao cried over a silver medal at all.” [Tea Leaf Nation]

Asian American, 16, nearly upsets world’s No. 2 player. “Though Warren Buffett couldn’t be there to see Hsing’s remarkable run, the California teenager’s other rich uncle was able to make it to London to watch her play. ‘Nothing short of phenomenal,’ her pal Bill Gates said after Hsing’s valiant third-round loss. ‘She is amazing.’” [Slate]

The tweet that got a Swiss soccer player expelled: “He posted the message after playing in the 2-1 loss against South Korea on Sunday. He said in the tweet that South Koreans ‘can go burn’ and referred to them as a ‘bunch of mongoloids.’” [AP]

Boris Johnson does funny thing interlude, via Deadspin:

Finally…

#NBCFail. [TechCrunch]

#NBCFail, part 2. [Guardian]

With the badminton controversy, it’s a fine time to relive the most bizarre soccer match ever, a 1994 Caribbean Cub game between Barbados and Grenada. [Bleacher Report]

Finally, finally…

Via Buzzfeed: “The Unnecessary Censorship Of Men’s Olympic Diving.”

Let’s start with the format: the Olympic women’s doubles badminton tournament begins with pool play with four groups of four teams, with the top two teams in each group moving on to the quarterfinals. The matchups in the quarters are predetermined: teams from Groups A and C crossover (1st-place team from A plays 2nd-place team from C, and vice versa), while Group B and D teams crossover.

It’s a standard format, but one that inevitably leads to athletes trying to buck the system by throwing their final pool-play match to ensure a better draw in the knockout rounds. I imagine the international badminton community is fairly small, with everyone knowing the relative strengths and weaknesses of everyone else. Which would explain why the No. 1 ranked team in the world, the Chinese pair of Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, decided to throw their match in straight sets yesterday to South Koreans Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na — who, it must be said, were also trying to lose, but doing a worser job of it. It made for an awful spectacle for the fans at Wembley — the longest rally was a mere four shots — who booed loudly once they figured out what was happening.

Wang and Yu’s reward? They are now on the opposite side of the bracket as fellow countrywomen Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei, who shockingly finished second in Group D. Assuming the favored teams win in the quarters, Wang and Yu will face Denmark’s Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Christinna Pedersen in the semifinals, the only team not from East Asia in the final eight. Wang and Yu, by the way, are the reigning world champions, beating in the finals of last year’s tournament — you guessed it — Tian and Zhao.

But how wise is this strategy? After all, there’s a reason Rytter Juhl and Pedersen were top of their group: they beat Tian and Zhao, in straight sets too, 22-20 21-12. Rutter Juhl and Pedersen are relative unknowns, possibly because they aren’t, as mentioned earlier, based in East Asia, but probably more so because they both focus on mixed doubles, where they excel. Could they possibly continue their dream run by upsetting the world’s No. 1 in the semis?

It would only be fitting. But what if the Badminton World Federation (BWF) steps in and doesn’t allow that matchup to happen? The BWF is currently investigating the Wang-Yu vs. Jung-Kim match, as well as a related incident involving Indonesia’s Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari and South Korea’s Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min Jung. In that match, the stakes were relatively higher: the winner had to face Wang-Yu in the quarters. Once again, the Koreans were worse at being worse, and Ha-Kim now face a sure exit in the next round.

Reports Reuters:

“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’,” the federation said in a statement.

Unfortunately, we’re not really sure what that means. What would the penalty be? Would BWF be bold enough to swap the semifinal matchups so that the Chinese teams are paired against one another? It seems doubtful.

Understandably, everyone is fingering Wang and Yu for starting this domino effect of poor sportsmanship. South Korean coach Sung Han-kook said, “The Chinese started this. They did it first. It’s a complicated thing with the draws. They didn’t want to meet each other in the semi-final.” Meanwhile, Chinese coach Li Yongbo replied, according to Reuters:

“This is nothing. It was just a game,” said Li with a chuckle as he walked off, declining to comment further.

Just a game, huh? The chuckle and walk-off sure makes him look like a pro wrestling heel manager, doesn’t it?

This was only the start of the mudslinging:

“It’s because of those Chinese,” a Taiwan team coach who declined to be identified told Reuters.

Bulgarian singles player Alesia Zaitsave said China regularly manipulated results to avoid playing each other.

“They did so many times last year, they did not play between each other like 20 matches. They do what they want,” he said.

Men’s singles player Marc Zwiebler of Germany said South Koreans had manipulated matches in the 2008 Thomas Cup.

“Against England they wanted to get second in their group so all the doubles players played singles and the singles players played doubles and they were just laughing on the court and let England win,” Zwiebler said.

“England finished top of the group and had to play a stronger team.”

China’s head coach Li told one of his women’s singles players to throw her semi-final at the 2004 Athens Games to allow team mate Zhang Ning to be fresher for the final against Dutchwoman Mia Audina.

Zhang duly won the gold.

“If it was the case they wanted to purposely lose, then it’s a big shame … it’s absolutely stupid and shameful sport,” Zwieber added.

“I can understand the motives but that they have the guts to actually stand in a crowded hall and put such shame in the game, it’s such a bad image for badminton.”

Yu Yang, for her part, defended herself thusly: “Actually these opponents were really strong. This is the first time we’ve played them and tomorrow it’s the knockout rounds so we’ve already qualified and we wanted to have more energy for the knockout rounds.”

And if you’re wondering whether this is actually a big deal, let’s just say that Chinese state media reported today that the Chinese Olympic Committee has opened its own investigation into the matter, then published a 624-word article summarizing the situation. Alas, we’re sure nothing will come of it, but the authorities here want you to know that they care that other people care. Because this is badminton we’re talking about. And badminton is not — as Coach Li will have you believe — “just a game.” It’s life, man.

UPDATE, 9:22 pm: All four teams have been disqualified from the tournament.