Do you believe that there is only one solution in any given situation. Thus your income and livelihood will never depends on one thing. First we have to have principles and believe that there is always another way. This way we can avoid us from troubles and being manipulated by someone.
But what is the other way? What would your solution be as a player if you want to continue playing badminton?
In theory, there might be other ways. However, when both want to lose (do not laugh, it's even harder than both want to win), you have to react fast. Otherwise, after a min a so, you will be "up" (funny right) by 5 points, and you can never "lose" again. I feel for the players, as they are caught in surprise as the other team is trying even harder. They are good players, but might not be the best strategies in the world. Under a lot of pressure (from coach, from crowd, from opponents, etc), it's hard to think fast, and get a win-win situation. Yes, it's that hard to out-lose your opponents.
I would not..... For what had happened, the players thrown their match to Win - for their country...this is the Olympic(not a circuit tournament).... they win for their country FIRST and then, they win for yourself and all the benefits that come with it. How to throw the game......this is how they should have done... YY and WX (or any other pairs) should have a plan...during one of the rallies....have an accident.... try to reach the bird together and crushed with each other and make you one of the player fell and do not get up....then you retire the match...done..... or keep on playing while limping badly until the umpire ask them whether they would like to retire the game. This will save all the embarrassments that we are watching in the news medias so far.
It is funny how you guys says you will "act" different if you were losing intentionally. Why being more hypocrite or a better liar would make it more right or even show more respect to the people watching the game? ;-) If they did not act well, either they are poor actor, or they are just not hypocrite enough. Personally, if someone is lying to me, if they do more effort to make it real, I am not anymore happy of the lie. I have not saw the game and I am late into all this story... but then you have to be rational when you judge if it is correct or not. If you do not like it, it does not mean they did something bad. It means... you don't like it. People might not like people who laugh at their opponent or are arrogant... some will like. But if you do not like it, that does not mean the person should get their victory removed. This scandal, at higher level, is similar to losing a point where you want to remove stamina from your opponent and get 2 easy points after. Mohammad Ali's "Rope-a-dope" anyone? Except that now it is losing a match instead of a point. Same thing, at higher level. Really. In the end, you have to beat the teams if you want to win the tournament. Some people will work hard daily even when they are exhausted, some other will rest when it is the good time to rest, and achieve higher result in the end... maybe they are just being more smart (or not a morning person like Taufik...). ;-) I can agree that where there is money involved (or any other external reward), that would be cheating the people putting money on the game, etc. However, proving rationally that a team wanted to lose, how you do that? (even if you know it) And then if they lost strategically, I think that is defendable. My point is, you can think of putting this as a rule, but I don't know if it is a good rule to put. Where is the limit? Some sport teams used to lose (e.g. in hockey), to get the number 1 draft pick at the end of the season. They changed the draft rule to avoid a bit more this behavior. What would have happened to these "bad" players if they just explicitly declared "forfeit" (e.g. we are injured, we won't play the game to not end our tournament). Would they've been disqualified for the rest of the tournament? I guess not. So, all I know, is they did it strategically believing it will be better for their end result. And as any strategy it can works or not. At first glance, I am not comfortable with their disqualification.
Now, "Throw a match to win" takes on a new meaning. China emerges as the biggest winner after throwing "that" match. Maybe Li Yongbo looked in the new format and gave a good thought, went through his game theory, blah blah and decided that I could take you all on. The rest was history…… mmm... huh...
Not sure if this would actually work. If you "retire", I think you're out of the entire tournament. This would have defeated the purpose.
hummm, I did throw a mtach 1 time, and I refused to throw a match at a different tournament, both time I lost in the next 2 rounds. Fair game I say.
Have you not watched any demonstration games/matches so far? They're for entertainment, and are not real, but a lot of people would still enjoy watching them.
I believe a few simple principles, the strongest players should not meet before finals, and players from same country should not meet before finals. When those principles are violated (by the organizers who disrespected the game), then everything else is fair game.
I guess when you are playing against someone much lower level you must go all out as well, totally playing to demolish like they are same level, cause you have to "respect" and play with "honesty".
yes the spectators who were all butthurt didnt realize they basically spoiled women's doubles final by pressuring IOC to do something drastic and this was the DQ of pretty much the strongest pairs leaving countries like Russia and South Africa etc competing when they were eliminated rather easily.
I've done it: Group stages of 5 to a pool. Already won the first 3 games and was guaranteed to go through to the 1/2 final (and win the pool). My ankle hurt. I didn't try too hard in the last match. I lost the last match in the group. I won the tournament.
For you're first and second principles the format actually met your criteria. The format only broke down because the second CHN WD pair failed to win their group. So based on that result they lost the 'right' to not meet the so called strongest pair until the finals. The only way to guarantee your so called 'principles' is to screw the tournament all together and have the first ranked team play the second ranked team right off the bat for gold and the fourth and third ranked team play for bronze. So reduce the whole competition down to two matches. Your principles are impossible to meet because the first condition assumes a predetermined result. YOU might try to say that the other Chinese team was the second best team but they failed to live up to that billing. The second Chinese team lost and the first Chinese team tried to dodge the consequences of that result. Too bad, no team has a right to any draw they feel is fair. As for your second point, what if one KOR pair was ranked 1rst and the second KOR pair was ranked 5th. Why should sharing a flag with the top ranked team shield the weaker team? The funny thing about this is that 90% of those here who are desperately trying to defend the actions of the CHN WD teams would be on this forum screaming blue murder if it was instead, the KOR teams juxtaposed with the CHN teams. Everything is fair game? Really? Everything is on the table? Performance enhancing drugs? Fair game? Body contact? Fair game? Give me a break.
I love this thread! It shows me exactly who is who (or what), if you know what I mean.... It kinda brings to mind that line, "be careful what you wish for..."
Of course these're ways to do so, to prevent a chaos, and gurantee the higher ranked player not to meet too early: 1. The single elimination format, as they are using before. 2. After group, re-do the draw, to honor the ranking, as the ranking reflect ppl's entire year's performance, rather than 1 or 2 matches. Do you see NBA let the top #1 and #2 playing at the 1st round of playoff, simply because both of them lost the last season game? You do not take away ppl's ranking, simply because they have 1 or 2 bad game out of the year. Of course, BWF should see this in advanced, and they were warned by the coaches. However, they just simple refuse to improve on their own end, and contribute to the total mess. So, the BWF should be man up to take the blame on their fair share, and god, we are still here talking about this, after the event was done 1 week already???