The Good, The Bad, & The Badminton

The modern Olympic Games have seen some scandals and controversies in the past, but as Laura McLay observes, “I never thought I’d hear the words ‘badminton’ and ‘scandal’ in the same sentence.”  In the Olympic Badminton preliminaries several national teams decided to throw matches in order to draw weaker opponents in subsequent rounds. The big-time birdie-chasers weren’t world-class cheaters, though, and the whole mess became a big shuttlecock-up. The woman athletes were so obviously unsporting that the IOC Racquet Squad threw them out of the Games. Two were from China, four from South Korea and two from Indonesia. The pair from China have been identified as Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, the world doubles champions.

World-class badminton isn’t the innocent backyard-and-beach birdie-bashing you may remember. The Malaysia-based Badminton World Federation has anti-gambling and anti-doping initiatives.

More:

“When is the optimal strategy is to throw a badminton match?” Laura McLay, Punk Rock Operations Research

Olympic badminton scandal serious business for the sport, comedy for everyone else,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“London Calling: The Science of Shuttlecocks,” Eoin Lettice, Communicate Science

“Badminton scandal: the game’s flawed, not the players,” Martha Gill,  New Statesman

NBC Olympic Badminton coverage here.

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Tags: バドミントン, badminton, bulutangkis, competition, 羽毛球, 배드민턴, International Olympic Committee, IOC, London Olympics, Olympic Games, Olympics, raquet sports, scandal, sports, sportsmanship