New DC United Investor Supporting Cheating, Poor Sportsmanship/Fair Play?

I like how he stuck up for his players.

Right or wrong with his opinion or approach, it's good to see that Thorir cares about Indonesia's badminton chances for success -- and I'd imagine he'll bring that same kind of approach to DC United.

Isn't it on an Olympic Committee's head and MLS team owner/investor's list responsibilities to complain and whine about things that don't go your way?

Or would we have rather Thorir said the the suspensions were correct and he wishes the Indonesian badminton players had better respected the game and played up the the ideals of the Olympics? To me, what this really points to are the (potential and real) problems with a group stage format -- and I think MLS is right to stick with a straight knock-out format for their playoff competition.

 

I think it is a total BS that these players got disqualified. If they threw matches due to external reasons (e.g. gambling) it's one thing. But they lost the game for competitive reasons - to play a weaker team next round and improve their chances of medaling. That's fair game IMO and it happens all the time in sports.

 

Not into the throwing china under the bus approach to defending the team, but i like that he didn't just applaud the committee and their decision. I don't like the idea of teams throwing games for strategy, but maybe that is the fault of the organizers and format.

 

Soccer has had issues like this. I'm sure someone can dig up the game where a team started scoring own goals... then their opponent started doing the same thing. As far as I recall those teams were ridiculed... but not sanctioned in any way. The right way to do things, of course, is to structure the competition so that's not possible. That's why many final round games are played simultaneously now in soccer tournaments.

So, yeah, it's embarrassing... but the tournament organizers should be more embarrassed. You'd think after this many years and all the other sports tournaments as examples would have taught them how to set up a good tournament.

 

Agreed. If the badminton tournament is set up so poorly that there's an incentive to lose then you can't blame the players for that strategy.

 

Over react much? That's an awfully inflammatory thread title over basically a competition format issue.

 

Spot on..

 

Proof that soccer has some of the poorest sportsmanship in sports when Bigsoccer posters are in a deep minority of people thinking throwing games for "sporting" reasons is ok?

The IOC has just put an end to this shit once and for all in one fell swoop. Japan needs to get disqualified too. (that one will be a much tougher decision to make)

 

What would make you feel better? Making them pretend better when they want to lose a match?

Atleast they were dead honest about it.

 

Did the badminton players admit it? I know the Japanese woman's coach did.

 

So how would they go about hiding it then?

 

Every morning in the Olympics I see swimmers slow down towards the end of their heats to give them a better chance of doing well later in the competition.

They don't usually win the heat, or win it by giving their best, but they do enough to advance and put themselves in a better position to win a medal by not going all-out in the morning.

I don't see much difference between that and what the badminton players (players? participants? Shuttlecokers?) did.

 

I thought about this, and the main difference is the fan experience, plus the definition of winning and losing in swimming.

For one, when you buy a ticket to a swim meet, you don't get a ticket to one race, you get a ticket to a day. Thus a swimmer not giving his all in a meet doesn't rob you of the value of your ticket.

Second, not finishing first in swimming isn't the same thing as losing. The goal of a heat is to have a top 8 time. The goal of a single game though is always to win.

Having said all that, Japan's strategy to not score is still not as bad as two competitors intentionally trying to lose in badminton. With Japan's strategy, had South Africa scored, they would have been forced to attack and try to tie, thus there was at least some semblance of tension left in their game.

 

But the fan experience and the value for money spent on tickets is of no concern to the players. All the players should be concerned about is doing whatever they think gives them the best chance to earn a medal. The fan experience and the value for money spent on tickets is of concern to the organizers and, as others have mentioned, this is their failure and not the players'. Unfortunately, the players are the ones getting punished.

 

No, the players' job should be to win. Not win a medal, win. If they beat the best players in the quarters or in the finals is not supposed to be of any consequence. Ever heard of "do your best"?

The only way that I see that this could have been avoided is by having all the last matches go on at the same time.

 

Then by that logic any team sport that rests players for the next match or to avoid suspension from yellow cards (for example) should also be disqualified for not trying to win.

(And I don't even know how you handle cycling, where in the road race the majority of the riders aren't riding to win, but to set up a teammate to win.)

 

Cycling allows it - it's actually in the rules. teams that rest players still have bench players that at least seem to be trying to win.

Are you just playing devil's advocate or do you really think it should be ok for TWO teams to decide that neither wants to win at a major competition?

 

I disagree that the goal is to win EVERY game. The goal is to win the LAST game. Ever heard of "Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win the war?"

 

I think the number of teams who make the decision is irrelevant. Teams are there to win the gold medal, if the best strategy to do that is to lose a game then so be it. That's poor design by the organization not poor sportsmanship from the players.

Does it suck that both teams in a match decided to try to do that? Absolutely. I don't know enough about the sport to decide if it was good strategy for either or both teams. My guess is that the idea would bite at least one of them in the a$$ without any need to disqualify them.

More than anything I find the move to disqualify the teams the first step down a slippery slope. Now not only are they dictating the rules of the game, but the style of play as well.

 

Watch rowing this week. One team advances from a heat and the rest go into the Repechage. Many crews will slow way, way up when it is clear they won't take first, to conserve energy for the subsequent race.

Watch the US relay teams get a massive advantage by sending different groups out for the various rounds, culminating with a more rested group than their competitors (that 4 x 200 relay last night resulted in not four medals for the US, but 7 - France had 5 and China 6 in silver and bronze respectively).

There's messes all over the place - things which give one person or team the advantage over another. The draw in pool play often does this, and making your way through pool and knockout play is part of the game.