Rule-makers and Players

One day has passed since the disqualification of eight female badminton players from Olympics, but the controversy over it has not died out. It is the biggest frustration for the top three powers in this field ever since badminton's adoption by Olympics. No one had ever expected the No. 1 seed double players to end their Olympics in this way.

The accusation from the Badminton World Federation (BWF) was, as I quoted, that these players were "not using one's best efforts to win a match" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport". The first charge is controversial - almost no one is using his best efforts to win a match until he has to. It makes perfect sense to preserve strengths before final. If we review Olympics games, it's quite common for swimmers to have better records in finals than in semi-finals. It's also not surprising if gymnasts choose easier movements to guarantee his qualification for finals, and go for more difficult ones later for medals. It's hard to define "best". You can't blame players on not making best efforts simply because they're not sweating to exhaustion, on contrary they're doing their best to win the match by using smart strategies.

The other charge is ambiguous: at least it's NOT clearly to me whether their manners are abusive or detrimental. Well, first I don't know what their manners are. If we assume the players are under the guidance of their coaches, then it should be their coaches' manner, not theirs. I don't think the BWF is ignorant of China's sporting system, and they should have some ideas on who's the decision maker on athletes' strategy. Ironically these BWF officials abused their powers over these poor badminton players while promising not to investigate the responsibilities of coaches - if you really want to defend Olympic values, do more investigation! Badminton Players who have been preparing for years for this moment, was scapegoated and helplessly found all their efforts in vain. And the person(s) in charge, successfully got away with it.

Secondly, it's also NOT clearly to me whether these players are happy to play in this way or their original intention was twisted by the change of rules. The BWF changed rules from  knockout rounds to a mixture of round robin and knockout  in Olympics even though they were warned of the potential damage - players can pick their opponents by changing their in-group rankings. Arrogant BWF didn't take it seriously, maybe because it was eagerly in search for a new rule to suppress Asia's dominance in badminton. Loop holes in the rules were so obvious that the best strategy was passive competition. If a player's best efforts will undermine his/her possibility of winning the championship, then it must be a problem with the tournament which is rule-makers' faults, not the players'.

Indonesia and Korea appealed right after the decision was announced. But Chinese Xinhua news, a mouthpiece of the government, soon released an announcement condemning Chinese players of violating Olympics values and supporting BWF's decision. I don't know how the deal was reached between BWF and Chinese sporting team, but the statement is shameless. A country who always claims itself a rising power and the second largest economy in the world, denied its responsibilities and passed the buck to two female athletes who actually had no choice but to follow the orders from their coach or even highers.

The BWF needed someone to be responsible for its stupid tournament to comfort the angry audiences and media when its officials were too arrogant to issue any apology, and the Chinese coach and his accomplice also needed someone to blame on to maintain their positions, which jointly made badminton players victims of the intrigue. The entire farce is an unfair-play between rule-makers and players, with the former denying their mistakes, and obliging eight innocent people to pay the price as high as their Olympics medals, professional reputations, and even career lives.