Bad Badminton

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but "Controversy Rocks the Olympic Games!" But this isn't your run of the mill roided-out 100m sprinter or 12 year old gymnastic with a fake birth certificate. We're talking 4 teams of badminton doubles (half of the remaining field) getting booted for trying to lose their last game of the round robin first round. Apparently, these teams all had qualified for the next round before their last match, and winning their final round robin match would mean they'd have to face a tough Chinese team in the knockout stage. So we were left with a bunch of elite players acting as if they are in the loser's bracket of the Camp Arcadia Olympics instead of ... well ... the real Olympics. The stodgy officials weren't happy and kicked them all out.

So what are we to make of this? Fans paid good scalped ticket $ to watch crap badminton (Col. Nathan Jessup if you please: "Is there any other kind?") However, the goal is to win gold, not game 3. During road cycling, you often see the eventual winners tucked into the peloton for more than half of the race, conserving energy and waiting to press hard when it matters. No one has any problem with that. How is this any different?

These 8 athletes were caught in the crease between 2 things the Olympic viewer wants: for athletes to try their hardest to win and for athletes to always appear to try their hardest to win. Usually, these go hand in hand (Kerri Strug even went so far as to fake an injury to meet these 2 requirements). But here, to win at all costs, the best plan was to lose. Ladies who play bad badminton, I for one salute you!

It feels wrong to have a  post on controversy doesn't include this photo of the Japanese gymnastics coach approaching the judges with a fistful of hundies:

"So I was told to hand this to a French lady with a ridiculous fur coat."

In other news, we are through 5 days in the competition now. North Korea is owning group E while both China and US are good picks in group A. Our leaderboard starts with Daniel Steele, Speed Skaty Katy, and Emily. But Daniel has already lost his gold guarantee. These 3 also have room to improve because they expect big points from their group D countries in track and field, which begins this weekend. Last Minute Derek is riding Australia all the way to the bottom, but with plenty of competition from those who took the host country. Still very early. Enjoy!