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Selasa, 31 Juli 2012

London 2012 Olympics: China and South Korea under investigation after badminton match descends into farce

The Korean pair left court without speaking to waiting reporters to explain the reasons for their involvement in the fiasco after the 23-minute match.

Yu claimed she wanted to ease up ahead of the knockout phase.

She said: "Actually these opponents really were strong. This is the first time we've played them and tomorrow it's the knockout rounds, so we've already qualified and we wanted to have more energy for the knockout rounds.

"Really, it's not necessary to go out hard again when the knockout rounds are tomorrow."

The Korean pair won the match 21-14 21-11. The longest rally in the first game was just four strokes.

Match referee Thorsten Berg came on to court at one point to warn the players.

The farce continued later in the evening when another Korean pair, the third seeds Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, appeared to start playing up against Indonesia's Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii.

Both pairs had also already qualified for the next stage from Group C, the connection with the earlier incident being that the pool winners would play Wang and Yu next.

The Korean pairs would play each other in the quarter-finals if Ha and Kim lost.

Berg returned to court and brandished the black card, which means disqualification, but after protests from the Indonesians it was rescinded and the match resumed.

Paisan Rangsikitpho, a member of the Badminton World Federation's technical committee, said the governing body was aware of what had happened.

He said: "We will have a real discussion tonight to see what has happened, but I have to get all the facts."

Whatever the reasons for the bizarre spectacle, it is certain to spark debate about the decision to introduce a round-robin stage as opposed to holding a straight knockout tournament.

The spotlight will also be cast once again on the Chinese, who dominate world badminton but have been accused of manipulation before.

Petya Nedelcheva, the Bulgarian women's singles 15th seed who had been playing on an adjacent court at the time of the first incident, was forthright in her general criticism of China.

She said: "China control everything. I don't know who controlled the match to lose but if it is China again, they did it so many times last year, they didn't play against each other in 20 matches. They do what they want."

Nedelcheva's comments are supported by figures compiled by online magazine Badzine earlier this year which show that of the 99 all-Chinese matches played in major tournaments in 2011, 20 were walkovers.

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