BADMINTON: Australia’s Renuga Veeran and Leanne Choo have been reinstated into the women’s doubles quarter finals following the sensational disqualification of four teams at the 2012 London Olympic Games for throwing group stage matches.

China’s top seeds Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, Indonesian pair Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari, South Koreans Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-Na as well as the second Korean pair Ha Jung Eun and Kim Min Jung were all disqualified.

The high drama means Veeran and Choo will now play Canada’s Michele Li and Alex Bruce in the  quarter final in the evening of Day 5 at Wembley Arena after thinking they had been eliminated from the competition on Monday.

The drama unfolded yesterday when Xiaoli and Yang (China) were taking on Jung and Kim (Korea) with both teams already qualified for the quarter finals.

The Chinese pair then deliberately tried to lose the match so they avoided a quarter final clash with their compatriots Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei, who suffered an unexpected loss earlier in the day.

Once their Korean opponents realised the situation, they too deliberately tried to lose with the match ending in high farce in front of a hostile audience, unimpressed with what they had paid to witness.

Players from both teams were deliberately serving into the net and refusing to hit basic shots back over the net.

Tournament referee Thorsten Berg warned the players they risked being disqualified if the tactics continued. The match restarted with the Koreans winning 21-14 21-11 despite the fact no rally lasted longer than four shots, something that is unheard of in badminton.

On a different court, the same situation was materialising in another preliminary match between Polii and Jauhari (Indonesia) and Ha and Kim (Korea).

The Korean and Indonesian pairs also employed similarly negative tactics against each other in an attempt to dodge Wang and Yu (China) in the quarter finals.

With the Wembley Arena crowd erupting into a chorus of boos and whistles, Berg stepped in and showed all four players a black card, which was rescinded. The Koreans went on to win that match 18-21 21-14 21-12 but the drama was not finished.

At the conclusion of the evening session, Australian head coach Lasse Bundgaard protested, arguing the two teams shown black cards in the second match in question should have been disqualified from the Olympic Games as the rules of badminton state a black card can’t be over-turned or rescinded.

This morning, the Badminton World Federation (BWF) stepped in and conducted a disciplinary hearing involving all four teams, charging them with “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport”.

The BWF found the four teams guilty and disqualified them from the Olympic Games.

David Mason
Olympics.com.au