Uh, forget abt being an "it".... yes, I go to school. And I think this topic is very interesting, if contraversial. It really allows you to see from so many different points of view... what Viver has said in her last posting, for instance, I think it makes a lot of sense. My sympathies for Ye Zhaoying remain but it's less easy to talk about the rights and wrongs of it all. I suppose it will always depend on whose view you are taking.
even in indonesia, we got the men's doubles gold medal thru tony gunawan/candra wijaya, but someone was suffering for a while, and that guy is halim haryanto. coz in 98 or 99 (i forgot) sigit budiarto was banned cause of a drug offense. that time it was tony/halim & sigit/candra. sigit/candra was 97 world champ. so, indonesia wanted candra to get new partner, and he choose tony. halim had to stay with no partner for quite some time until sigit ban was cleared, he then partnered sigit. though sigit ban was lifted before olympics, he cant make it with candra for olympics, he didnt even qualify for it. so for our gold medal, i think halim heryanto suffered the most.
Adel, damn, you popped your own bubble. i was just wondering which training school your master sent you to. i know Singapore has some really good school for us human types, i was impressed by how good the training schools are as well !!! kwun
On behalf of the Singapore authorities, thank you, Mr. Kwun Han for the most favorable comments.... I was not from a training school... I graduated three mths ago from Raffles Junior College... a lot of students from there are studying in the States and making animals of themselves... I'll prob be coming over this August but I'll be in the east coast. Anyway, back to the topic... thank you Pebulutangkis for making a nice point. I don't think it was terribly fair and (say anything you like, but) I can't bring myself to come up with phrases like "Well, there's got to be a sacrificial goat". I suppose it's true that somebody has to lose out at some point in time in order to fulfill the so-called "greater good"... No wonder they say, "It's a dog's life"... (this is the last time, I PROMISE).
Adel, impressive. when i was back in college. i had quite a few friends from RJC. all really smart people! (none of them play badminton though. ) which college are you going to, may i ask?
Re: (no more) 2000 Olympic Women's Single Champion I've been accepted by University of Virginia. Am waiting for three more replies. But I'm not one of those smart ones, really. And we aren't all that brilliant either... it's just that we've been trained to mug, mug and mug for the past 12 years so... Were you from CMU? Coz that's what ur email add said in the badminton fanatic section... oh yeah, I wanted to contribute something to the page but it wasn't working.
Re: (no more) 2000 Olympic Women's Single Champion Adel, You show them how to play badminton in the US. Especially when some guys you don't like keep buzzing around like mosquitoes with Dengue. They can try playing badminton with you and get whipped for their pains.
Re: (no more) 2000 Olympic Women's Single Champion congradulation on your acceptance into U of V. Hope you spread the badminton fever around state of V.
Re: (no more) 2000 Olympic Women's Single Champion Hey, congrats for getting into UofV! make sure they have a good badminton club and go kick some asses.. yeah. i went to CMU. i met most of my really smart Singaporean friends when i was doing my undergrad in Brown. good luck with your studies..
Re: (no more) 2000 Olympic Women's Single Champion Wow, from Brown! *whistle* You must be damn smart as well, even smarter than I... haha. Spread the game around? I just hope I don't die of misery with no badminton to watch there... I'm already starting to make arrangements with friends to help me videotape stuff. Anyone cares to help?
Sorry Chen, I can't buy your "party/country comes first" argument. In the past century, too many millions of people have lost their liberty and/or their lives because the masses unquestionably followed the party line. From a practical standpoint, you may be correct that a Chinese player may need to obey the coach on these such matters if that player wants to stay on the PRC national team, but that doesn't make the practice fair or acceptable. Chen, am I correct in assuming that you live in or are from the PRC? If so, your comments really emphasize the difference in thinking between individuals living in a liberal democracy and those living in a totalitarian regime. A very analogous situation arose on the European professional cycling tour about a dozen years ago. The American cyclist Greg LeMond joined a French team that was captained by Bernard Hinault, who ultimately "won" the Tour de France five times. However, in his last and probably second to last win of the Tour, LeMond was the stronger cyclist and would have been able to beat Hinault, but for his team's director ordering him to back down and follow Hinault. In Hinault's last Tour win (1986 I believe), he ordered and finally begged LeMond to back down and not win a very gruelling mountain stage, that could have given the American the outright lead in the race. Hinault promised LeMond he would assist LeMond in winning the Tour the following year, so LeMond relented and allowed Hinault to win. The next year, Hinault reneged on his promise and LeMond beat him outright to win the race, ignoring the team orders to let Hinault win again, and became the first American to win the Tour de France.
Brett, cycle talk. the problem with Lemond was that he was an American in a French team, and he wasn't the leader. It would be a disgrace for the Frenchmen if they'd allow an American domestique to beat their "best" rider.
Re: (no more) 2000 Olympic Women's Single Champion sure. i will help. i will help watch. Adel wrote: > > Wow, from Brown! *whistle* You must be damn smart as > well, even smarter than I... haha. Spread the game around? I > just hope I don't die of misery with no badminton to watch > there... I'm already starting to make arrangements with > friends to help me videotape stuff. Anyone cares to > help?
So far, the comments supporting the Chinese coach's decision seem to me to be explanations, not justifications. There is a huge difference between choosing one of two players to put in a match when a coach legitimately has that choice, versus telling a player to lose on purpose in a match that has been scheduled through genuine competition. The Olympics is not just the premier athetic competition between countries, but is, in most sports at least, the pinnacle of athletic endeavors for that sport and that lofty level of competition should require a correspondingly high level of sportsmanship. Influencing the outcome of an athletic event via means other than genuine, hard fought competition, is just wrong. The important achievement in the Olympics is each and every medal won by a country's athletes, not the sum total of medals collectively won by that country's various teams. Singles in badminton is an individual sport. I think that athletes should be allowed to compete to the best of their abilities in individual sports because generally they, rather than any other athlete, were the ones who earned the right to be on the team. In team sports, that is a different story, where factors other than raw talent, such as leadership and being a team player, can be important. I don't have a problem with what Cooler wanted to do at his corporate tournament. I think his situation is very analogous to one in chess in which a player knows that he will lose one of two pieces in the next move, and chooses to sacrifice the knight instead of the other piece, the queen, which he will then use to checkmate the opponent in two turns.
Kwun, you're definitely right about that sort of motivation. I hate to rely on generalizations and stereotypes, but the French just aren't going to improve their rather-less-than-positive international image when they do things like that. At least French fans are still incredibly enthusiastic about the Tour and the sport in general, notwithstanding their lack of a genuine potential Tour winner for the past decade. H.L. Mencken, a famous turn of the century writer from Baltimore, once stated: "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
