London Summer Olympics 2012

Engineer, I agree with you that the disqualifying had everything to do with the Olympic Officials being embarrassed by the players demonstrating their idiocy to the world for designing rules that made loosing some games advantageous, and that there were no clear rules against loosing on purpose, otherwise they would not have charged the players with such bland and generic infringements.

The officials clearly need to take their share of the blame for designing such a stupid system and in ignoring repeated warnings that players might be incentivised into loosing to game the system. They absolutely knew that they were going to get massive stick for it, and that is why they were being so harsh in the punishment.

Having said that, the players and coaches are clearly not guiltless either. The argument that they did not think they broke any rules in deliberately loosing is undermined by the fact that the players were warned in no uncertain terms by the match ref of what would happen if they continued to play so badly.

That decision probably came from a little bit of arrogance and stupidity in that the Chinese team no doubt went through the rule book with a fine tooth comb to check if there were any rules against loosing on purpose beforehand when they first thought of doing this. Having found nothing, they no doubt thought they were safe from sanction, the fact that they were the top seeds and defending champions probably gave them a little added arrogance as they probably thought the officials would not dare to really disqualify them.

It is more than a little ironic that a Chinese team would not anticipate the petty wrath of officials or application of a principles based interpretation of the rules as opposed to a rules based once since there are plenty of petty and wrathful officials in China and China operates a principles based legal system as opposed rules based on in the west.

The coaches and players should have known better than to think they can be so blatant in their attempts in loosing without consequence, and they were arrogant in ignoring the stern warnings of the match official. There was no doubt some naivety involved, but then how many times had athletes and teams lost out for being too naive in sports?

I think acquisitions that Olympic officials were being racist against China in DQing the players are unjustified and unfounded. It is quite clear why the officials DQed them and that has nothing to do with their nationality or race and everything to do with them embarrassing and pissing off the officials.

Only one of the 4 teams QDed were Chinese, so there is really no basis for claims of special unfair treatment. The decision to DQ the players might have been very harsh, but it was at least applied with equal harshness to everyone caught and no one was singled out for special treatment.

It was the media who were being biased by making the story almost exclusively about China and trying to spin it as if all the criticism was only directed towards China when it was directed with equal force to all the players involved by officials and commentators.

The blame for that should be laid at the feet of those responsible, and Olympic Officials might have been guilty of much, but no one really could or should blame them for being racist when they clearly were not.

plawolf said:

Having said that, the players and coaches are clearly not guiltless either. The argument that they did not think they broke any rules in deliberately loosing is undermined by the fact that the players were warned in no uncertain terms by the match ref of what would happen if they continued to play so badly.

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Of course not. Losing a match intentionally is nothing to boast about. However, is it fair to disqualify these players based on that? That's what the issue really is about. Considering that so many athletes of other countries manipulate or outright break the rules and get away with it, China would have been perfectly within its right to protest about the DQ.

Isn't there a forum rule here forbidding any members from accusing other members of trolling, ultra-nationalism and other accusations of such nature?

Quickie said:

Isn't there a forum rule here forbidding any members from accusing other members of trolling, ultra-nationalism and other accusations of such nature?

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yes, in a round about way..

The following posts will be deleted or edited;

•Posts containing personal attack, swearing, foul language, political propaganda, and commercial advertisement better know as spam.
•Posts that are offensive to any ethnic, racial or religious groups or government. This isn't political forum.
•Posts that prompt hatred between different countries or groups of people. This includes,"Nationalistic chest thumping", "country bashing" remarks and underhanded attempts to insult various countries and governments.
•Meaningless arguments and inappropriate provocation of other members.

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So let's all get back on track and knock off this silly bickering. Afterall the Olympics are just games.

bd popeye super moderator

solarz said:

Of course not. Losing a match intentionally is nothing to boast about. However, is it fair to disqualify these players based on that? That's what the issue really is about. Considering that so many athletes of other countries manipulate or outright break the rules and get away with it, China would have been perfectly within its right to protest about the DQ.

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As I already said, the decision to disqualify the players were unduly harsh and probably unfair and unjust considering they did not break any actual rules.

However, the harshness of the penalty had nothing to do with the nationality of the players and everything to do with image.

By playing to loose, the players exposed the idiocy in the officials for creating a system that made such tactics advantageous in the first place and that badly embarrassed the officials. In addition, the actions of the players generated some negative publicity and annoyance amongst the fans. I would put that as a distance secondary reason as apart from the fans who paid to watch the game live, I don't really think that many people were all that upset by players trying to deliberately loose. Most people would have just rolled the eyes and forgot about it.

It was no doubt a factor, but the main reason the officials were so harsh was because the players made them look like muppets for designing such a stupid system.

Carl Lewis pulls a John Leonard" in athletics



Usain Bolt just rewrote athletics history with 100m and 200m wins in consecutive Olympics while Lewis is a proven doper.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. At least Lance Armstrong and Tyler Hamilton didn't accuse their competitors of doping.

Well here they're saying Usain Bolt's popularity is now dead... in the US at least. Just because Bolt fires back at Carl Lewis' cheating accusation? I also love how Victor Conte's name is brought up to Bolt in an interview as to suggest guilt. Oh yeah the guy that juiced up American athletes and was prosecuted for it.

bluewater2012 said:

Take a look at the wiki link i gave you ealier regarding the round robin tournament, it it states "[5] The round robin stage at the Olympics were a new introduction and potential problems were readily known prior to the tournament." and going by your logic when they know there a problem they should fix it right away, which they did not but instead penalized the athletes for their slacking efforts. How is that fair? Yes the rules are changed now after you ousted 8 members from the game, bravo! And how should you expect china to respond to the DQ knowingly china are a complete unlike the americans who supports their athletes all the way. Should china say otherwise dont be surprised the media ganging up on china which already did with ye shiwen gold medal. Talk about bad timeing DQ right after that and here china like to save face so they prob suck it up and keep quiet like what they would usually do that what irks me so much. As for your logic of cheating not against school policy, that is like saying taking an exam with an open book. There is no problem with that when it clearly states you can look at the answer. Its clearly within the rules going by that logic.

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well did previous athlete exploit the rules, like this olympic? anyway if throwing the game in olympic is ok, hey thats the persons belief. i haven't heard any other person who belief throwing game in olympic is right. if you put this argument on other international forum, and see how many people there agree. the chinese government doesn't even agree with the athlete behavior.
if someone cheat the game with some new enchance drug thats not list in the current IOC drug list, its not wrong at all because they didn't break the rule. or if someone hurt and the onlooker just decide not to do anything about it, calling police, ambluance etc its right too? since they didn't break any rules. there are alot things that doesn't cover by rules/laws, but as a grow up person, people should recognize wrong and right morally. don't use excuse to justify throwing games in olympic. also the referee already give them warnings before, so after that the team should play for the wins. japan soccer team did the same for different reason, but they got off lightly due to lax referee. but we cant use this excuse or others who did the same to defend it, two wrong doesn't make it right. so i think most people agree throw game is wrong especially in such big event, the athlete did something wrong, recognize it later, thats it and be done with it.

s002wjh said:

or if someone hurt and the onlooker just decide not to do anything about it, calling police, ambluance etc its right too? since they didn't break any rules.

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That's a good analogy. Do you think that person should be thrown in jail because they didn't call the police or ambulance?

s002wjh said:

if someone cheat the game with some new enchance drug thats not list in the current IOC drug list, its not wrong at all because they didn't break the rule. or if someone hurt and the onlooker just decide not to do anything about it, calling police, ambluance etc its right too? since they didn't break any rules.

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It seems that you can't tell the difference between legality and righteousness. Yes, it is wrong for on-looker to ignore the injured person, but they cannot be punished by law. As a person with good moral value, I should help friends in need. So should I be punished if I refused to lend a good friend of mine $10,000 when asked? You can say I should be ashamed of myself for not lending the money to my buddy, but you CANNOT sue me for not being a good friend to someone.

There is a clear distinction between breaking the law and not being a righteous person. People hire accountants to exploit loopholes in tax laws to avoid paying taxes. Is this the same as tax evasion? As a righteous and honest person, you SHOULD pay taxes based on how much you actually make annually. However, most people find it absolutely OK to avoid paying the full amount of taxes they actually owe to the govn't. They find loopholes in tax laws to do it. IRS knows about it. They can't do anything about it. In fact, they themselves do the same thing. I would assume you do it too? Tax shelters, anyone? WHY? because it is NOT illegal!!! This is different from avoiding paying taxes ILLEGALLY, i.e. breaking the tax law!!

The badminton incident is clearly the case where players exploited the loopholes in the rules. They DID NOT break any rules since IOC has not clearly indicated which sections of which chapter of the rule book these player broke. So the most the IOC should do is to discourage players from doing it again since this is something a righteous person would do. However, they cannot be punished since no rule forbids intentional losing. Even in the professional sports world, where intentional losing occurs a lot, there is no rules against it. In fact, many sports leagues design their rules to discourage intentional losing, but cannot do anything to punish the team doing it although they know fully well that intentional losing hurt their fans and ultimately their pockets. One good example is the lottery system in the NBA. Some bad teams would intentionally lose games to gain the #1 draft pick if a potential future superstar enters the draft. Thus, the NBA designed a lottery system, where having the worst record in the league would not guarantee you the top pick.

If you think these players should be punished, please indicate to us which rules these players violated. Don't cite the Olympic spirit thing cause it is NOT in the book. If you think it is, enlighten us which chapter, which section and which page it is on. And how should the players be punished? Is it one game suspension, ten game suspension, or lifetime ban for not having Olympic spirit?