Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's doubles
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badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...
women's doubles tournament at the
2012 Olympic Games The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
took place from 28 July to 4 August at
Wembley Arena Wembley Arena (originally the Empire Pool, now known as OVO Arena Wembley for sponsorship reasons) is an indoor arena next to Wembley Stadium in Wembley, London, England, used for music, comedy, family entertainment and sport. The 12,500-sea ...
. The draw for the tournament was made on 23 July 2012. Thirty-two players from 14 nations competed in the event. The competition became embroiled in controversy during the group stage when eight players (two pairs from
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
and one pair each from
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
) were ejected from the tournament by the
Badminton World Federation The Badminton World Federation (BWF) is the international governing body for the sport of badminton recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was founded in 1934 as the International Badminton Federation (IBF) with nine member ...
after being found guilty of "not using best efforts" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport" by playing to lose matches in order to manipulate the draw for the knockout stage. In one match, both teams made a series of basic errors, and in one match the maximum rally was just four shots.


Competition format

The tournament started with a group phase round-robin followed by a knockout stage.


Seeds

# ''(Group Stage, Disqualified)'' # ''(Gold Medallists)'' # ''(Group Stage, Disqualified)'' # ''(Silver Medallists)''


Results


Group stage


Group A


Group B


Group C


Group D


Finals


Group stage disqualifications

A review into two matches in the badminton women's doubles competition played on 31 July was conducted after it appeared that, having already qualified for the knockout stages, players on both sides in each game had been attempting to lose their last group stage matches in order to gain a more favourable draw in the quarter finals. The matches in question were between China's
Wang Xiaoli Wang Xiaoli (; born 24 June 1989) is a Chinese badminton player who is a doubles specialist. In 2012, she competed at the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Career In 2005, she joined the Chinese national second team and officially became the f ...
/ Yu Yang and South Korea's
Jung Kyung-eun Jung Kyung-eun (Hangul: 정경은; or ; born 20 March 1990) is a South Korean professional badminton player. She was the 2016 Summer Olympics bronze medalist in the women's doubles event. Career Jung Kyung-eun began her career competing in s ...
/
Kim Ha-na Kim Ha-na (Hangul: 김하나; or ; born 27 December 1989) is a South Korean badminton player. She was the mixed doubles gold medalist at the 2013 Asian Championships, and was part of the national team that won the Sudirman Cup in 2017. Kim wo ...
in Group A, and South Korea's Ha Jung-eun / Kim Min-jung versus Indonesia's
Meiliana Jauhari Meiliana Jauhari (born 7 May 1984) is a badminton player from Indonesia. She won the women's doubles title at the 2009 and 2013 Indonesian National Championships. Jauhari participated at the 2010 Asian Games and 2012 Summer Olympics. Career ...
/
Greysia Polii Greysia Polii (; born 11 August 1987) is an Indonesian former badminton player specializing in doubles. She won gold medals in the women's doubles at the 2014 Asian Games, at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games and at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She ...
in Group C. After errors began occurring during routine shots in both matches, including shots going long and serves hitting the net, the crowd reacted angrily, and the first game in the match between Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli of China and Jung Kyung Eun and Kim Ha Na of South Korea featured no rallies of more than four shots. A South Korean coach claims to have emulated China so as to avoid playing against another Korean team in the knockout stages before the final, and South Korean head coach Sung Han-kook said "Because they don't want to play the semi-final against each other, so we did the same. We didn't want to play the South Korean team again". In the second game, the tournament referee initially issued a black card to disqualify the players, but after their team's coaches and officials ran onto the court and remonstrated with him, this was rescinded. Play was allowed to continue while he monitored proceedings, and both the earlier match and this later match were ultimately played to a conclusion, completing the draw for the quarter finals (Group B and D having concluded earlier in the day). Technical delegate Paisan Rangsikitpho said after the Group A match, "If it's true what I hear, this is a shame and I don't like it. And I'm not going to accept anything that I don't like at all. It's not in a good spirit....I apologise to the public, I apologise for everyone and I am not happy." On 1 August 2012, following a
Badminton World Federation The Badminton World Federation (BWF) is the international governing body for the sport of badminton recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was founded in 1934 as the International Badminton Federation (IBF) with nine member ...
review, all eight players were found guilty of "not using best efforts" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport" and were ejected from the tournament. The quarter-finals then continued with the ejected teams being replaced by the other teams from their groups. The decision was highly debated; some argued that while the teams have not been performing their best effort to win the game at hand, they had been in fact doing their best to win the ''tournament'', and that conserving resources in early matches is a common practice in every competitive sport. To prevent any repeat of these events, the competition format for the next Olympics was changed: all pairs finishing second in their groups would be placed into another draw to determine who they faced in the quarterfinals, while the top pair in each group would have a fixed position matched to its designated seed in the knockout phase.


References


External links


Official women's doubles tournament website

How Olympic Badminton Made Losing a Winning Strategy
(Wired) {{DEFAULTSORT:Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Women's doubles Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics Olymp Women's events at the 2012 Summer Olympics