Chinese players defend coach

BADMINTON NEWS:CHINA'S OLYMPIC players backed their under-fire head coach Li Yongbo and slammed the expulsion of two of their team-mates as the match-throwing scandal continued to overshadow the tournament yesterday.

“I think it’s extremely unfair. Firstly, it’s a problem with the format, that’s what I believe,” said Xu Chen, who will partner Ma Jin in today’s mixed doubles final against another Chinese pair at Wembley Arena.

“I also thinks it’s extremely regrettable because an athlete’s highest goal is to be an Olympian.

“Even if they weren’t allowed to compete for the gold medal, they should still be allowed to compete. It’s such a shame.”

The Badminton World Federation expelled four women’s doubles pairs from the Olympic tournament on Wednesday for deliberately trying to lose their matches to secure an easier run through the knock-out rounds.

World champions Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli were among the casualties for China, who many competing teams blamed for instigating the farcical scenes on Tuesday night.

Yu promptly announced her retirement from the sport in a post on her Chinese microblog, slamming the federation for shattering her and her doubles partner’s “dream”.

The spotlight has turned to the coaches’ roles in the unedifying charade, which saw the players deliberately dump shots into the net and hit long, prompting jeers from the crowd.

An IOC spokesman said he had requested the Chinese, South Korean and Indonesian delegations to investigate the entourages of the disqualified players.

China has already announced a probe into the team and Li apologised to the Chinese people in quotes to state media. But pundits have demanded he step down for bringing shame to the nation of 1.3 billion people.

“The bat should not strike the Chinese players. The head coach Li Yongbo is the main reason for the use of the ‘malicious strategy’ employed at the Beijing Games,” state news agency Xinhua said in a commentary.

Xu and Ma celebrated their 21-23 21-18 21-13 semi-final victory over Indonesia’s Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir by pointing at the Chinese team in the stands, where Li gave a standing ovation with other team officials.

“I don’t know about what is happening in China right now, because I’ve just been concentrating on my own game,” Wang said. “But of course I support Li . . . I will continue to. He’s our head coach after all.”

Xu said the team were trying to draw a line under the match-throwing scandal and that the fall-out had not affected the team’s mindset.

“It’s in the past, so we’ll let it stay in the past. The competition’s not over yet. We’ve still got the final tomorrow,” he said, referring to the gold medal decider against team-mates Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei. “They’ll be going all out and we’ll be going all out.”