Four women’s badminton doubles teams have been disqualified from the London Olympics. The teams involved were world doubles champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China, South Korea’s Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na, South Korea’s Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung and Indonesia’s Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii. The four teams were accused of throwing matches in order to gain favorable seeding. From the National Post:

The Badminton World Federation said in a statement it had charged the doubles players from China, South Korea and Indonesia under its players’ code of conduct with “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.”

Xiaoli/Yang and Kyun-eun/Ha-na played a match that saw the crowd boo them over losing points deliberately. Then Jung-eun/Min-jung and Jauhari/Polii took the court only to be warned by officials for the same thing. While this is shocking, there is good news – this is the first time that an athlete has gotten into trouble or been sent home from the 2012 Olympics and it had nothing to do with Twitter! Progress!

[National Post]