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After a Dispute, a Retirement
By KEN BELSON
Published: August 2, 2012
LONDON — The fallout from the Olympic badminton controversy continues. A day after eight players were disqualified for deliberately trying to lose their preliminary-round matches on Tuesday, one of them said she planned to retire.
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Bazuki Muhammad/X01002, via ReutersYu Yang announced her retirement on Thursday.
Yu Yang, one of the two Chinese athletes penalized, said on her blog that she was done competing in a sport she dominated for several years. A two-time Olympic medalist and a world champion in women’s doubles, Yu said that she had played her last match. “Bye, bye, my beloved badminton,” Yu wrote on her personal page on Tencent Weibo, a microblogging site. “Goodbye B.W.F.,” she said, referring to the Badminton World Federation. Her abrupt departure made waves Thursday in Wembley Arena, where the tournament’s quarterfinal rounds were being played without four players from South Korea, a pair from Indonesia as well as Yu and her partner, Wang Xiaoli. Many in the badminton world were still trying to process Yu’s decision to try to lose a match to save energy and to avoid playing another Chinese doubles pair in the next round. “She’s defamed the Olympics, and it’s a big disgrace, and maybe it’s not her fault or responsibility, but unfortunately this is the result,” said Larry Lew, a sportswriter for Sina.com. “She might get further punishment by the local sports administration. Maybe her life is finished.” Yu and Wang were among the favorites to win the women’s doubles title. Yu won the gold medal in Beijing four years ago, as well as a bronze medal in the mixed doubles. She was the world champion in 2010 and 2011 in the women’s doubles and dominated tournaments with her fierce style of play. “She’s physically strong, determined; she had the whole package,” said Britain’s Gail Emms, a silver medalist in mixed doubles at the 2004 Athens Games, who played against Yu many times. “It could be she just feels it’s enough. Would you want to come back to a sport that did that to you?” Yu is 26 and did not appear to have any extraordinary injuries, though she did say after her match on Tuesday that she was not in the best condition. While some badminton players compete into their 30s, others peak by their mid-20s. In China, there are many younger players ready to replace an older teammate, so the pressure is intense. Yu, who started playing badminton at 9 years old, faced a long, tough road to success that Emms called “a conveyor belt.” The nation’s extensive training system requires athletes to work their way up through regional clubs to get to the national team. The competition is so heavy that many Chinese emigrate to France, the Netherlands, Singapore and other countries so they can play in the Olympics. The Chinese “are very hard core, a lot of repetition in training,” said Andy Chong, a former player for Malaysia and the United States who trained with Chinese coaches. Chong said he did not support what Yu did, but he said he understood why a Chinese coach might ask a player to concede a match. When Chong played in a national tournament in the United States in the 1990s, his coach, who was Chinese, asked him to go easy on an opponent. “I was told not to win the match, to lose my singles match, because it would hurt his confidence ahead of the Olympics,” said Chong, who now coaches at Boston Badminton. “I wasn’t surprised because I knew the Chinese tend to do that when they play their own teammates.” Whatever the merits of the strategy, the disqualifications appeared to have tarnished the sport and embarrassed China on the world’s biggest sporting stage. “They want to give the best image and they want to show that China is able to win the gold the right way,” said Tarek Hafi, who writes about badminton for several magazines. “It has been a big blow for them, and I guess she has to take the consequences.” Last edited by seribulan on 3-8-2012 07:02 AM \n\n |