Badminton-gate: Olympic cheaters or clever competitors?

It was one of sports' biggest shames yet when 4,800 fans around the Wembley Arena witnessed four women's doubles teams deliberately lose their matches so to arrange facing easier opponents in the knockout stages of the tournament.

One Chinese team, two South Korean teams and one Indonesian team were seen as "not using one's best efforts to win a match" by the BWF (Badminton World Federation), and have been disqualified from the tournament on grounds of being "clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport".

The knocked out players were Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli of China, South Korea's Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, and Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung and Indonesia's Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari.

Commenting on the issue, Chinese World No.1 Lin Dan later told reporters at the Wembley Arena, that he himself didn't quite agree with the tournament format, which allowed for the possibility of match fixing in this way.

Lin Dan told reporters, "Why would the tournament have rules like this? If they just had a knockout round,it would be all fine. You lose, and that's the end".

Lin Dan's compatriot, Yu Yang - who was one of the eight players found guilty of throwing matches, has even announced that this would be her last involvement in badminton, deciding to quit the sport for good.

Yu Yang, one part of the World No.1 Women's Doubles team with her teammate Wang Xiaoli, left a public message on her microblog, saying, "Goodbye BWF, goodbye my beloved badminton".

The outraged Chinese player insists that she and her teammate were simply "using the rules to abandon the match... so as to be able to compete better in the second round...".

She then went on to say, "You have heartlessly shattered our dreams... this is unforgiveable".

The question for ardent badminton fans remains that, was it right for the teams "not using their best efforts" to have been disqualified? Or were they sticking to the rules of play, and simply being clever going about the competition?

Or, was it a justifiable disqualification, in which all players should always do their best in every match for the benefit of 'good badminton' and fan enjoyment, over winning medals?

What do you think?

Here's a similar instance using Formula One as an example.

In Formula One, the pinnacle of motor racing, we always see competing teams pushing the absolute limits of the rules in order to win.

One example, Red Bull Racing, the reigning World Champions, have accomplished most of their success by constantly pushing the legal interpretations of the rules - borderline breaking them, causing the sport's governing body to continuously be on their toes to keep up, and adapt the rules to better manage what's allowed and what isn't.

Another example, would be a Formula One team's use of 'Team Orders' - now a legal act, in which teams may issue an 'order' to one of their drivers to let a teammate overtake them to gain an advantage/ points. Yes, it does alter a natural result, yet ruling bodies allow it for the greater pursuit of championship titles.

This constant being on the limit of what's legal and not, and the continuous pushing of these limits is what keeps Formula One so exciting.

Should badminton and the BWF encourage a similar attitude? TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!

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