While the Olympics are a time for good sportsmanship, an Olympic Chinese badminton player quits after disqualification for fixing games.
Olympic Chinese badminton player quits after disqualification – photo by Flickr
According to Fox Sports News, famous Chinese badminton player Yu Yang on the Tencent microblogging service late Wednesday wrote: ”This is my last game. Farewell Badminton World Federation. Farewell my dear badminton.” Yang leaves the game on a sour note as her and her partner, Wang Xiaoli, were one of four doubles teams which appeared to play poorly on purpose to secure a more favorable position in the next phase of the event.
The other teams, two from South Korea and another from Indonesia, ere disqualified from competition but allowed to stay at the games. This is the first mass disqualification in Olympic history, making it a very significant one. According to reports, the audience in attendance was fully aware of Yang’s and Xiaoli’s purposely poor performance as they started to chant, ”Off! Off! Off!” after repeated faults by the duo. Even broadcasters saw the foul play that was happening as BBC David Mercer said, “They’re serving fault and fault! They are just hitting the ball into the net! They are both trying to lose, and that is unforgivable. This is the Olympic Games.”
While the players have not made any comments to world wide media, the Xinhua news agency quoted Yu apologizing ”to all the badminton fans and friends over yesterday’s game, because we did not comply with the Olympic spirit, and did not deliver a match with our true level to the audience, the fans and the friends.” The Chinese Olympic delegation also released a statement to Xinhua, criticizing its players’ actions: “The behavior by Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli on court violated the Olympics ideal and the spirit of fair play. The Chinese delegation feels distressed over this matter.” In addition, the Chinese badminton coach Li Yongbo apologized and accepted blame for the scandal, “As the head coach, I owe the fans and the Chinese an apology. Chinese players failed to demonstrate their fighting spirit of the national team. It’s me to blame.”
Olympic Chinese Badminton Player Quits After Disqualification For Fixing Games.
