The Badminton Scandal.

Yesterday (31/7/12) the World Badminton Federation (wbf) charged two Chinese female, four South Korean female and two Indonesian female badminton players with "not using ones best efforts to win a match" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is abusive or detrimental to the sport" following what were possibly two of the worst games badminton ever played anywhere in the history of the sport. The suspicion was that all four of the pairs were deliberately trying to lose in order to give themselves an easier draw in the next round. Today (1/8/12) the wbf have disqualified all four pairs from the 2012 Olympics.

Although this is the first time that a sports governing body has taken action it is not the first time that competitors at the 2012 Olympics have been suspected of trying not to win. Other examples include but are in no way limited too; The Colombian and Swiss crashes during the men's cycling road race on Saturday (28/7/12), England's under-23's (+Ryan Giggs) football side only managing to beat the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 3-1 in the men's soccer on Sunday (29/7/12), that South African swimmer who celebrated by appearing to go to sleep on the lane divider after winning the race directly before Rebecca Adlington's 200m freestyle race on Sunday (29/7/12) and USA swimmer Micheal Phelps becoming the winner of the most Olympic medals ever by only winning a silver medal by losing out to another South African swimmer.

So what the Chinese, the South Koreans and the Indonesians were doing was taking an example of this behaviour to an absurd extreme in order to promote discussion about it. I think the point they were trying to make is because of globalisation and advances in communications technology national governments meet more frequently then they ever have done before. For example the Heads of Government/State (HOGS) of 27 nation European Union (EU) meet in person every month while the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meet on an almost daily basis. Therefore the Olympics is in serious danger of becoming a circus without a purpose so unless it can get people interested in the actual sports it may not survive much beyond the 2016 games.

So I don't know why the ticket holders at the badminton matches in question are moaning about refunds for because they may have been lucky enough to have been there during one of the turning points in Olympic history.