Olympic Badminton Controversy: 8 Women's Doubles Players Disqualified For Throwing Matches

[aggiesal]

6. I side with the players on this. . . .

The organizers decided to implement Pool play instead of knockout rounds.

The favorite to win the gold took 2nd place in their pool, They now have to
play the 1st place team from a different pool in the knock out round.

Because no team wants to meet the favorite, why finish 1st in your pool?
So they decided, that the best way to win a medal is to avoid playing the
favorite. Which means losing.

This strategy happens all the time in Pool Play. Soccer, Basketball, ... all
play in pool play rounds, and when they don't want to meet a favorite
in the knock out round, they play weaker players. It's just more subtle
and harder to verify. While in Badminton, there are no reserve players,
so the it becomes really obvious.

This is the organizers fault. This is what they wanted, this is what they got.