Four women’s doubles teams, two from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia, were disqualified from Olympic badminton on Wednesday for throwing their matches in order to better their odds of playing weaker opponents in later rounds. The Chinese players are world champs Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli. In an ugly match on Tuesday, they clearly played poorly against their South Korean opponents, who were also trying to lose. Both teams drew loud boos from the crowd. The same disgraceful behavior occurred an hour later between the other South Korean team and the Indonesian team.
Watch the Chinese–Korean match here, courtesy of Business Insider.
Just hours ago, Yu Yang announced she has decided to quit the sport. From the Associated Press:
A comment on a verified account for Yu Yang on the Tencent microblogging service late Wednesday read: “This is my last game. Farewell Badminton World Federation. Farewell my dear badminton.”
Yu went on state television in China to apologize “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.”
This scandal comes just days after Chinese swimmer, Ye Shiwen, drew suspicions that she is doping.