“Praying to Lose”
Asians are to badminton as Kenyans are to running marathons. It’s kind of their thing.
Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China and South Koreans Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na had already both qualified for the knockout rounds and were only playing for seeding. The Chinese team had every reason to lose in order to avoid playing the other top-ranked Chinese team until the finals. Having sensed their plan, the Korean team also attempted to throw the match as well, because there’s “no way these Asians are going to out-lose us!”
What ensued was a badminton match most people would play while drunk at a family reunion.
Of course they were booed out of the building. Asians losing at anything is disappointing, but losing on purpose? Shameful at best. Imagine if this were a math tournament and you heard answers like this:
2 + 2 = 5
43 – 56(3) = 450
√f(x) + ¾(y + 1000) ≤ cos(45x – ∑)
(I have no idea if the last one is right or wrong – or even a real math equation – but you get the point)
Both teams were kicked out of the Olympics.
Badminton WINS go to…
Anyone who played badminton the right way – jumping up and smashing the crap out of the shuttlecock.
So think they would have at least had a good competition at “who can look like they aren’t playing bad on purpose”…they didn’t even try to fake it. C’mon!