Where is the Olympic spirit?

The comments come after a Chinese pair, Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, as well as two pairs from South Korea and one from Indonesia were last night accused of trying to lose badminton matches in an attempt to manipulate a draw in the London 2012 women's doubles.

All the players were booed by an irate crowd as serves were deliberately hit into the net and shots hit wide and long in an embarrassing evening for the sport.
Whilst such "farcical scenes" were unusual on the badminton tour, statistics suggest that collusion between Chinese players, who dominate the regular season, was not uncommon.

"This does happen, statistics compiled last year by influential magazine Badzine saw that out of 99 all Chinese affairs, 20 of those were not completed or were walkovers," Gilmour said, "which suggests the Chinese head coaches have basically told their players that one of them would lose the match so the other would be fresh into the next round."

Of the eight players accused at London 2012, the correspondent added: "They have just broken all the Olympic spirit."