Olympics Unfair to Banish Strategic Badminton Players

One of the biggest controversies from the first week of the 2012 London Summer Olympics was the dismissal of eight women’s badminton players for reportedly “violating the Olympic ideal and spirit of fair play.”

It seems that the majority of people agree with the International Olympic Committee’s decision to exclude the players from the remainder of the games, however, I certainly do not.

I understand that it seems ridiculous to attempt to lose in any sporting event and I also understand that people paid good money to see this event and the result was not what they expected. However, I don’t support the removal of athletes from the games when they didn’t do anything against the rules. Yes, these badminton players were throwing their games, but it wasn’t written anywhere that they couldn’t.

This was the first year that Olympic badminton included a round-robin format instead of a win-or-go-home format. This meant that teams could lose and still compete in the next stage of the tournament. In fact, the way things were going losing could help out a team because the team with the worst record plays the team with the best record first in the quarterfinals. When a surprising team beat a high-seeded team in the round-robin stage it set up a scenario where teams were intentionally trying to lose to face the expected weaker team that had won.

That may sound confusing to some, in fact it’s a little confusing to me, but what it boils down to is that these eight athletes, or four doubles teams, were playing the best strategy they could think of to succeed in the games.

Some people have called their actions cheating, but that is an extreme over-exaggeration, in my opinion. If you’re not breaking any rules than you’re definitely not cheating. This is simply an example of athletes being punished for making the best of a bad system. I’ll be surprised if the round-robin format returns to Olympic badminton in the 2016 games, because it can lead to this type of controversy, but as long as it is a part of the format, athletes shouldn’t be banished for manipulating it.