The World Badminton Federation has kicked four teams out of the Olympics for intentionally trying to lose matches and gain a competitive advantage. And why would eight women who worked so hard to reach the 2012 Summer Games want to lose? Because the pool play format of the Olympic tournament rewards it.
The teams — two from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia — were charged with, and disqualified for, “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport." Wednesday's disqualification came the day after the players, all of whom had qualified for the quarterfinals of the women's doubles tournament, tried to throw their matches so they would face easier opponents in the next round.
This bizarre turn of events can be traced to the Games' switch to a round-robin tournament. The format, which replaced a straight one-and-done format at the Games this year, has teams compete in three round-robin games before reseeding them in a bracket. There are four pools of four; the top two teams in each pool go on to the quarterfinals while the others go home. In a round-robin tournament, losing one game can lead to an easier match-up in a later round by pitting you against a weaker team.
By winning their first two matches, China’s Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang secured a spot in quarterfinals, and their match against the South Koreans would determine first and second place in Pool A. In theory, educated seeding would eliminate strategic tanking before it starts — you do well, you get a high seed, you play someone who isn’t as good. The winner of a given pool plays the second place team from another pool. But then the other Chinese team, Qing Tian and Yunlei Zhao, lost to Denmark in an upset.
That's when Wang and Yu saw their tournament outlook change. The upset placed their teammates on the same side of the bracket as the winner of Pool A, so if both Chinese teams won their quarterfinal matches, they'd meet in the semifinals. That would mean only one would make it to the finals. Given that the Chinese teams were ranked number one and two in the world, there was a good chance they would meet in the finals — assuring China of gold and silver — if they stayed on opposite sides of the bracket.
Whether out of national unity or the belief that, despite a loss to Denmark, China was still the superior team, it set the stage for Wang and Yu to attempt to lose.
On some level, these teams should be allowed to lose. Their end goal is a medal, and China, Indonesia and South Korea’s motivation to prevail in the end most definitely is not in question. Those three countries have taken home 23 of the 24 gold medals awarded since badminton became an Olympic medal sport in 1992. How can they knowingly put forth a full effort if it hurts their chances later on? It creates an incentive to lose. But what followed in London was a domino effect, a race to the bottom that drews other teams in and robbed spectators of real competition.
An hour after the Chinese allegedly tried to throw their match, the South Korean team of Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung faced the Indonesian team of Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Pollii in Pool C. Both teams apparently adopted a similar losing strategy to avoid meeting Wang and Yu.
Of course, there are other factors at play here. If players are thinking things through, they’ll want to consider the psychological effects of a loss, even if it’s intentional, and balance it with the momentum of entering the quarterfinals on a win. And they’ll want to calculate the reward of losing versus the risk of getting busted, a deeper level of game theory explained by Julie VanDusky-Allen over at The Quantitative Peace.
The same sort of thing arose during Sweden’s infamous loss to Slovakia in hockey at 2006 Winter Games. It’s inherent in the pool play format, especially in sports where a country can send multiple teams. But pool play also allows a more robust tournament. Teams that lose aren’t immediately knocked out, and the end result, usually, is a more accurate picture of who truly is the best.
But it also creates a situation where losing can be a winning strategy, a situation the Badminton World Federation decided it could not tolerate — at least when it was so blatant.
