2 Aug 2012

Disqualified Chinese badminton champion quits sport

“You have heartlessly shattered our dreams,” Olympian Yu Yang says, announcing plans to retire from competition. Top-seeded Yu and her doubles partner were disqualified for match fixing.

Disqualified Chinese badminton champion quits sport.

Disgraced and disqualified, Yu took to her microblogging site to announce her retirement and air her grievances.

“This is my last competition. Goodbye Badminton World Federation, goodbye my beloved badminton,” Yu wrote on her Tencent microblog. “We … only chose to use the rules to abandon the match.”

“This was only so as to be able to compete better in the second round of the knockout (stage). This is the first time the Olympics has changed the (event’s format). Don’t they understand the harm this has caused the athletes?” she wrote.

“You have heartlessly shattered our dreams,” said Yu. “It’s that simple, not complicated at all. But this is unforgiveable.”

Yu posted her comments after she and teammate Wang Xiaoli were expelled for throwing their match to secure more favourable draws later in the tournament.

Ordered to apologise

It was a more contrite and contained Yu who appeared before the media, however. National officials ordered her to publicly apologise, China’s Xinhua state news agency reported.

“I think firstly we should apologise to the Chinese audience, because we did not demonstrate the Olympic spirit. And then we did not give the audience a game that fully demonstrated our skills and it really resulted in a lot of negative influence,” Yu said yesterday.

Wang was also disqualified along with six others from South Korea and Indonesia: South Korean pairs Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, and Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, plus Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari of Indonesia.

“The behavior by Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli on court violated the Olympics ideal and the spirit of fair play. The Chinese delegation feels distressed over this matter,” the Chinese Olympic delegation said in a statement reported on Xinhua.

Hopeless shots

The half-hearted pairs’ competition disgusted the crowd of 4,800 at Wembley Arena. The players were booed as they splayed hopeless shots into the net.

“The delegation has already severely criticised and educated the responsible badminton leaders, team and relevant players and demanded they profoundly recognise the seriousness and the harmfulness of this matter, reflect deeply on it, publicly apologise and resolutely prevent such incidents from happening again,” Xinhua quoted an unnamed spokesman as saying.

Li Yongbo, chief coach of the Chinese badminton team, said the behaviour of his players reflected the shortcomings of the new regulations in the sport.

“We didn’t strive with all our might in the Olympic way. From that point of view we really didn’t grasp this point thoroughly … as chief coach I really feel I must say sorry to fans and viewers nationwide,” Li told Xinhua.