Soldato
Olympic female badminton players face charges
- Thread starter RavenXXX2
- Start date
Soldato
I saw some of this yesterday. It was very odd to see.
After the official came on to warn them to put on a 'show', one of them stated something along the lines of "We are already through to the next round, why waste energy".
Totally wrong attitude imo.
After the official came on to warn them to put on a 'show', one of them stated something along the lines of "We are already through to the next round, why waste energy".
Totally wrong attitude imo.
sounds reasonable to me why risk any injury or extra exertion when there is no need?
they are there to win, they are athletes possibly the best in the world in their field.... you dont expect them to specalise in theatrics as well do you?
Soldato
Whilst I understand their reasoning, why expend the energy bothering coming out onto the court in the first place then? At least they should have bothered to put on some sort of show for the crowd instead of just poncing about with the shuttlecock.
People paid a lot of money to see them compete, and it's just insulting to see them not try. It has nothing to do with them "expending their energy", but them trying to engineer a better draw.
As elite athletes in their field, they have trained to play the number of games, in the time to win gold, so there is no reason why they can't try hard
As elite athletes in their field, they have trained to play the number of games, in the time to win gold, so there is no reason why they can't try hard
Associate
Agreed,
It simply comes down to cheating, they were trying to manipulate the draw in their own favours so that they had an easier run to the final....thats cheating in my book.
Soldato
Should have least made it fun for the audience !
Associate
- Joined
- 24 Jan 2010
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- 2,141
I agree. Didn't formula 1 adjust their scoring system at some point for the same reason? The dominant drivers were accumulating enough points to secure the win well before the end of the season, so you'd have the best drivers not even trying for the last few races of the season.
The new system is just as bad (F1) - its more that previously the points gap was so small that there was little incentive to risk going for a win over finishing third, with the bigger points difference you now have incentive supposedly.
I really see no issue with this and why people are outraged. It's playing to win. I'll try to explain myself so you don't just think I'm crazy.
If you could give yourself an easier draw, you would (or I would). It's the most safest thing to do so you guarantee progress and stack the odds in your favor that if you play correctly, are totally within the games rules. Why take unneeded risks? If all those options are available to you, why not use them?
Yes you can go and say "But as potential gold medalist athletes you should do your best no matter what" and I do agree completely and in an ideal world I would want this but there comes a time when strategy is the key aspect in winning and strategy was on display here. People need to understand why this happened.
There is the obvious reason of they wanted to conserve energy and this is true but what most people won't realize is you also hinder your future opponents from learning your current tactics, team mechanics, weaknesses in your game etc that they could potentially counter and use against you in the next matches. If I'm playing against the world champions I'd rather have 4 hours of quality match play of my opponents to study vs only 3 or so hours. That hour gained of play could be the difference between winning and losing at this level.
Anyone else notice the Chinese coaches just stayed in there seats at the 11 point break? You don't need to give your players any advice if all you said before they walked on is "Lose this match".
I actually found the match itself very good to watch. The Chinese were playing JUST enough (in game 2) to not get disqualified but not win either. Pretty impressive and was probably harder to do than actually winning the game since you would need to think about more variables.
There is however the tainting this leaves on Badminton that is the only real negative I can see. If a player or team serves three or four faults, should that be called fixing a match? What if the people were just nervous and really wanted to win but cracked under the pressure? What happens if they then do manage to get the serve in but then hit the next return shot wide, can that be seen as fixing?
Too many questions for things such as these but I hope you understand where I am coming from and you can address similar situations with at least a more open viewpoint to the issue. It's not pretty, but is it effective? I would say so.
Edit - New replies since I started typing this and yes I would be all for a new scoring system to combat this.
If you could give yourself an easier draw, you would (or I would). It's the most safest thing to do so you guarantee progress and stack the odds in your favor that if you play correctly, are totally within the games rules. Why take unneeded risks? If all those options are available to you, why not use them?
Yes you can go and say "But as potential gold medalist athletes you should do your best no matter what" and I do agree completely and in an ideal world I would want this but there comes a time when strategy is the key aspect in winning and strategy was on display here. People need to understand why this happened.
There is the obvious reason of they wanted to conserve energy and this is true but what most people won't realize is you also hinder your future opponents from learning your current tactics, team mechanics, weaknesses in your game etc that they could potentially counter and use against you in the next matches. If I'm playing against the world champions I'd rather have 4 hours of quality match play of my opponents to study vs only 3 or so hours. That hour gained of play could be the difference between winning and losing at this level.
Anyone else notice the Chinese coaches just stayed in there seats at the 11 point break? You don't need to give your players any advice if all you said before they walked on is "Lose this match".
I actually found the match itself very good to watch. The Chinese were playing JUST enough (in game 2) to not get disqualified but not win either. Pretty impressive and was probably harder to do than actually winning the game since you would need to think about more variables.
There is however the tainting this leaves on Badminton that is the only real negative I can see. If a player or team serves three or four faults, should that be called fixing a match? What if the people were just nervous and really wanted to win but cracked under the pressure? What happens if they then do manage to get the serve in but then hit the next return shot wide, can that be seen as fixing?
Too many questions for things such as these but I hope you understand where I am coming from and you can address similar situations with at least a more open viewpoint to the issue. It's not pretty, but is it effective? I would say so.
Edit - New replies since I started typing this and yes I would be all for a new scoring system to combat this.
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Caporegime
The Chinese did it so the two pairs wouldn't face each other early on, nothing to do with having an easier match in the next round. They did it to maximise their medal opportunity.
Exactly
It wasn't about conserving energy. Lots of people do this sort of thing, especially in swimming. Holding back a bit in the heats/semi's in order to do just enough to qualify without using up all their energy. Especially when they have more than 1 race in the same session.
What the badminton players were doing however was attempting to manipulate who they played in the draw, artificially fixing the result.
It's cheating nothing more.
Man of Honour
Match should have been stopped and they should have been DQ'd on the spot. Them being "through already" is no reason to do this.