The Badminton World Federation recently disqualified a Chinese, Indonesian and two South Korean duos for not playing their best, which has marked the first major scandal at the Olympics.
Due to the scandal, one of China's top players, Yu Yang quit the sport on Thursday after being disqualified from the doubles tournament.
Yu Yang said on the Weibo, China's Twitter-like micro blog on Wednesday, "This is my last game. Farewell Badminton World Federation. Farewell my dear badminton."
Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli were one of four teams that allegedly played poorly on purpose in order to gain a better position in the next phase of the tournament.This lead to the teams trying to lose the match, which was overcome with boos from the crowd as they deliberately missed or served poorly.
The Badminton World Federation said that they were kicked off because they were "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport."
China openly criticized the incident but declined to appeal the decision. According to the Xinhua news agency, Head badminton team coach Li Yongbo said, "Chinese players failed to demonstrate the fine tradition and fighting spirit of the national team. It's me to blame."
According to Agence France Presse (AFP), Yu Yang's mother defended her daughter to a local news outlet, "Yu Yang has always been obedient. It's the same in the team. I don't think she would have acted alone," she said.
Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli were accused by other players of attempting to throw the game to avoid playing China's No 2 ranked pair before the match that could lead to a gold medal.
The other pairs that were kicked off include Greysia Poli and Meiliana Jauhari of Indonesia and Jung Kyung-eun, Kim Ha-na, Ha Jung-eun and Kim Ming Jung from South Korea.
The badminton games are being played in a round-robin format for the first time in the Olympics leaving the potential for game-fixing to be manipulated easier. South Korea's head coach has since admitted that the duos from his team had attempted to throw their games against China and Indonesia but said that it was instigated because of the Chinese team who did it first.
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This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
