Badminton gate

I'd been wanting to talk about this for the past month, and I really should have done that already. I blew it, so sue me for lack of blog making.

(I made sure to suggest an actual ridiculous charge, as I was taught to avoid that phrase growing up, what with it being such a litigious world even in the 90's... this lesson may be too extreme for reality, or else too superstitious when actual reflected on)

During the Olympics there was a kerfuffle regarding four top teams intentionally throwing matches (two teams were trying to lose a match... when they were paired against each other. They were booed for the bad show by the paying attendees).

I must have learned about this from the Penny Arcade guys, who linked to this article: http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/8/1/playing-to-win-in-badminton.html

From the context of the Penny Arcade post, i.e. the lack of denouncement, it was clear that my beloved Penny Arcade was in favour of the contents of this article.

I, however, am not. (It's okay, I still love Penny Arcade)

The article writer takes issue with the scorn heaped on the athletes for taking advantage of a scoring system/player matching system that could be manipulated so that a better team can aim for a weaker team, thereby helping themselves win gold or silver or whatever. While I ultimately agree that the rules shouldn't make it plausible for a player to WANT to lose, and that the rules should be ammended in the future to counteract this problem, I completely disagree that it is the people who made the rules that should be booed (sp?) and who are, in his offensive phrasing, "pathetic".

Wishy-washy though it may be, there actually IS a rule already in place for this kind of behaviour. It states that Olympic athletes are supposed to play to their fullest ability to promote the spirit of good sportsmanship and good... uh, good faith playing.

Argh, I'm really running out of time, can't think of appropriate wordage in 15 minutes for, what, 4 posts?

Look, you come to the Olympic games to represent something better than medal grubbing, despite how the powers that be in the U.S. and China, and yes, even Canada, make it seem.