8 Asian Badminton Players DQ'd for Throwing Matches
By wchung | 06 May, 2025

Four women’s badminton doubles teams were disqualified from the London Games Tuesday for playing badly in an effort to position themselves for non-Chinese competition in a later round of the tournament.

Two teams from South Korea and one team each from China and Indonesia were ejected from the Games by he Badminton World Federation after it investigated obviously purposeful poor play that included deliberately hitting the birds into the net or out of bounds. The teams involved had already won places in the quarterfinals and were apparently trying to avoid being pitted against dominant Chinese teams in that round.

South Korea and Indonesia appealed the decision. China accepted the federation’s decision. S. Korea’s appeals were rejected on Wednesday and Indonesia withdrew its challenge.

The disqualified players are world doubles champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China and their South Korean opponents Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na, along with South Korea’s Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung and Indonesia’s Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii.

Their efforts at throwing matches were so obvious that spectators booed their performance.

“It was absolutely shocking,” said Gail Emms who had won a silver medal in badminton at the Beijing Olympics. “The crowds were booing and chanting ‘Off, off, off.’”

The disqualifications of the Asian teams meant that four previously eliminated teams were back in the quarterfinals. Russian pair Valeria Sorokina and Nina Vislova, and Canadian team Alex Bruce and Michele Li were advanced from Group A, and Australian pair Leanne Choo and Renuga Veeran and South Africans Michelle Edwards and Annari Viljoen were advanced from Group C.

The BWF’s decision was generally applauded, but there was also much criticism of the irrational way the tournament was structured. Unlike most tournaments in which superior play in early rounds earns positioning against lesser opponents in the next round, the badminton tournament sometimes punished winning play with matchups against superior teams. Players blamed the problem on the introduction of a round-robin stage in place of a straightforward knockout tournament.

Chinese players Wang and Yu threw their match by making little effort after China’s second-seeded pair unexpectedly lost to a Danish team in the morning. That put Wang and Yu into a match with their own No. 2 pair in a semifinal meeting instead of the final, eliminating the possibility of winning both gold and silver.

An hour later the South Korean team of Ha and Kim tried to throw their match to the Indonesians to avoid meeting Wang and Yu in the quarterfinals. The Indonesian pair had the same idea. The umpire warned all four players for not trying hard. They were later given black cards that disqualified both pairs, but the cards were rescinded on a promise of better play.

In the third game the Indonesians succeeded in losing to the Koreans who then were placed in the slot against the world championship Chinese team.

This is definitely not within the Olympic spirit,” said China’s Lin Dan, the Olympic men’s singles champion. “But like I said before, it’s not one-sided. Whoever sets the rule should make it knockout so whoever doesn’t try will just leave the Olympics.”