Badminton Latest.

Well I say latest this all happened so early yesterday (2/8/12) afternoon I'd sort of forgotten about it by the time of last night's update. Anyway after the world badminton federation (wbf) disqualified Chinese, South Korean and Indonesian badminton players for appearing to try and lose matches at the 2012 Olympics the Chinese took it on the chin while the South Koreans and Indonesians appealed. The Indonesians later withdrew their appeal while the South Koreans lost theirs. The Chinese team went on to win a gold medal for diving although that might have been a slightly sarcastic medal. Today the Chinese badminton players have publicly apologised which is no great surprise. If you're accused of something like this you have to either fight it or apologise for it.

Events today though have sort of proved the Chinese point about the Olympics having move towards actual sport rather then being a sort of political spectacle with the European Central Bank (ECB) hold a press conference about the state of the Eurozone economy. You see even as recently as Atlanta 1996 the Olympics were an opportunity for nations to send each other coded hints about things like their economic policy. In 2012 though the Olympics have turned into more of the distraction that stopped people listening to one of the world's largest economies explaining their situation and policy in microscopic, technical detail.

As for the ECB press conference they're keeping interest rates the same and there was no big announcement about the buying up of sovereign bonds or further integration. The markets will not like this so expect them to throw a tantrum in the coming hours/days.


14:40 on 2/8/12.