GAMES

The Badminton World Federation  has charged eight Olympic doubles players with "not using one's best efforts to win a match".

Four pairs of players - two from South Korea, one from China and one from Indonesia - could be disciplined.

Constant errors, including players serving into the net, were made.

All four pairs had already qualified for the last eight and have been accused of wanting to lose in an attempt to manipulate the draw.

The federation meets on Wednesday morning to discuss the case. As well as the "not using best efforts" charge, the players are also accused of "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport". Options open include expulsion from London 2012.

Teams blamed the introduction of a round-robin stage rather than a straight knockout tournament as the catalyst. In the round-robin format, losing one game can lead to an easier match-up in the next round.

In the first women's doubles match at Wembley Arena on Tuesday night, fans jeered China's Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli and South Koreans Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na .

The longest rally in the first game lasted four shots, with match referee Thorsten Berg coming onto the court at one point to warn the players.

South Korea won the Group A match, which lasted 23 minutes, 21-14 21-11.

Both pairs were already through to the quarter-finals, with the winners to face China's Tian Quing and Zhao Yunlei. The two Chinese pairings can now only meet in the final.

Korea's coach Sung Han-kook said: "The Chinese started this. They did it first. It's a complicated thing with the draws. They didn't want to meet each other in the semi-final, they don't want that to happen.

"They (BWF) should do something about that."

But Yu said the Chinese decided to preserve energy ahead of the knockout stages.

She said: "Actually these opponents really were strong. This is the first time we've played them and tomorrow it's the knockout rounds, so we've already qualified and we wanted to have more energy for the knockout rounds."

A later match between South Korean third seeds Ha Jung-Eun and Kim Min-Jung and Indonesian pair Meiliana Juahari and Greysia Polii was played out in a similar atmosphere.

Referee Berg returned to court and brandished the black card, signalling disqualification, but it was rescinded and the match resumed when the Indonesians protested.

Both pairs had also already qualified for the knockout stages, with the winners of Group C to play Yu and Wang and the Korean pairs to face each other if Ha and Kim lost.

The Koreans won 18-21 21-14 21-12 and did not comment before leaving the court, but Polii said: "I don't know what happened. If that's the game, we have to accept all the things.

"Either they want to trust us - we play bad or we play good. Our control is only to play as good as we can."

Gail Emms, a badminton Olympic silver medallist for Great Britain in 2004, who was at the event for BBC Sport, said: "I'm furious. It is very embarrassing for our sport.

"This is the Olympic Games. If badminton wants to save face they should disqualify the two pairs and reinstate the pairs that came third in the group.

"This is something that is not acceptable. The crowd paid good money to watch two matches."

The International Olympic Committee said it had "every confidence" in the badminton federation to "deal with the issue appropriately and take any necessary measures".

China's Olympic sports delegation has begun an investigation into the matches, state media reported. The country's Olympic Committee opposed any behaviour which violated "sporting spirit and morality", a spokesman said.

Further action could be taken based on the results of the investigation, the spokesman said in a report published by Xinhua news agency.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Michael Phelps won the right to call himself the greatest Olympian of all time when the US team destroyed the field in the 4x200 metres freestyle relay yesterday to hand him his 19th medal.

Chinese prodigy Ye Shiwen won her second gold of the Games, setting an Olympic record in the 200m individual medley, after stunning swimming pundits with her victory and world record in the 400 medley on Saturday.

But the night belonged to Phelps, who swam the anchor leg of a relay that the Americans dominated from start to finish after Ryan Lochte handed them a commanding lead.

It was a historic moment in the 116-year annals of the modern Olympic Games, and an emotional one for Phelps, still a powerful force but no longer the commanding figure who won an unprecedented eight golds at the Beijing Games in 2008.

His teammates flung their arms around him. "I thank those guys for helping me get to this moment," said the 27-year-old from Baltimore, who had 16 medals before the start of the Games.

Having picked up a silver in Sunday's 4x100 freestyle relay, he drew level with Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina's tally of 18 when he won silver in his first outing yesterday in the 200 metres butterfly.

The American led going into the last few metres of his favourite race, but was tiring rapidly and had to settle for second when South Africa's Chad Le Clos ploughed through to snatch it on the final touch.

Watching at poolside was Latynina, 77, who has held the record for decades with her haul from the Games at Melbourne (1956), Rome (1960) and Tokyo (1964).

Latynina told Reuters earlier this month she had no doubt Phelps would overtake her in London, adding: "I can only wish him well".

The entire audience in the 17,500-capacity Aquatics Centre stood to applaud Phelps' cumulative achievement in winning 15 gold medals, two silvers and two bronze. Latynina won nine, five and four respectively.

In other action on Day Four, Germany won its first two golds, in equestrian eventing, and France its fourth, in canoe slalom, but host nation Britain was still seeking its first.

China tops the overall medals table with 13 golds, followed by the United States with nine. Each has 23 medals in all.

The U.S. women's team stormed to the gymnastics gold - the country's first since 1996 - with dazzling performances from Jordyn Wieber and Gabby Douglas.

It was compensation for Wieber's disappointment at missing out on a spot in the all-around individual final, and for the U.S. men's slump to fifth place in their team event on Monday.

In the pool, 16-year-old Ye completed a medley double when she held off a late challenge from Alicia Coutts of Australia.

The teenager, who swam her last length on Saturday faster than Lochte did in winning the corresponding men's event, has been forced to fend off insinuations of cheating.

American John Leonard, executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association but not on the U.S. coaching staff in London, told Britain's Guardian newspaper: "Every time we see something ... 'unbelievable', history shows us that it turns out later on there was doping involved."

The US Olympic Committee distanced itself from his comments, saying he was not associated in any way with the country's swimming or Olympic team.

Chinese officials hit back. "Ye Shiwen has been seen as a genius since she was young, and her performance vindicates that," Xu Qi, head of the Chinese swimming team, told the news agency Xinhua.

"Don't use your own suspicions to knock down others. This shows lack of respect for athletes and for Chinese swimming."

Source: www.guardian.co.tt

Switzerland footballer Michel Morganella has been stripped of his Olympic accreditation after posting a racist message on social networking site Twitter.

Morganella (pictured top, in white) posted the message, which insulted South Koreans and has since been deleted, after Switzerland were beaten 2-1 by the Asian country on Sunday (July 29).

"I made a huge mistake after a disappointing result," said Morganella.

"I wish to apologise to the people in South Korea and their team, but also to the Swiss delegation and Swiss football in general."

The 23-year-old claimed that he felt provoked after receiving a torrent of abuse throughout the match against the Koreans.

Morganella was booed throughout the match after he picked up an "injury" in a phantom challenge with Arsenal forward Park Chu Young.

After the match he made his feelings clear on Twitter writing: "I want to beat up all South Koreans! Bunch of mentally handicapped retards!" ("Je les tous Defonce Coréens, allez vous tous Bruler, bande de trisos!")

Switzerland's Chef de Mission Gian Gilli said that the player "discriminated against, insulted and violated the dignity of the South Korean football team and people."

According to a spokesman for the Swiss Olympic team, Morganella has accepted the decision to strip him of his accreditation and has apologised to South Korea.

Morganella, who has played one senior fixture for Switzerland, will miss the final Olympic clash with Mexico.

The Palermo defender's account on Twitter has also been deleted.

Although London 2012 is meant to be the first "social networking Games", the use of the media platform has already landed a Greek athlete in trouble.

Triple jumper Voula Papachristou was not even allowed to travel to the Olympics for posting a racist message on Twitter, which mocked African immigrants.

Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has tried to encourage Olympians to communicate with fans via social networking, it has urged them to follow guidelines to avoid such pitfalls.

By David Gold

Source: www.insidethegames.biz

London 2012 has started to put thousands of tickets back on sale for the Olympics in an emergency bid to fill the empty seats at venues across the Games.

In the lead-up to the Olympics, London 2012 claimed there would be no empty seats at the venues as they were overwhelmed with ticket requests but the sight of whole sections of gaps in the stands has angered the thousands of fans who missed out on tickets.

The non-attendance of accredited "Games Family" – including sports officials and media – has largely been blamed for the empty seats but London 2012 have said that international federations  have started giving tickets back to sell to the public.

"We talked to the international federations yesterday," said the London 2012 director of communications and public affairs Jackie Brock-Doyle at a press conference here.

"We were able to put back into the pot for sale around 3,000 tickets last night; they have all been sold.

"That includes about 600 for the gymnastics event today and we are going to do that on a day to day basis.

"The other side of it is obviously in basketball, when the Dream Team [the USA basketball team] played yesterday, there wasn't a spare seat in the house.

"So we are doing this session by session, talking to the accredited groups including broadcast media, and asking whether we can release for the different sessions tickets back into the public pot.

"Where we can, we are going to release those the night before and put them up for sale.

"The accredited seating for these Games is down 15 per cent on previous Games, so there already has been a reduction in accredited seating for London 2012."


Brock-Doyle also defended criticism that London 2012 should have addressed the issue at an earlier stage.

"I think we are trying everything we can to make sure those accredited seats are filled where we can," she said.

"There are operational issues that make it difficult to fill some of those seats which is why we are putting and making them available to the troops and to the teachers and children.

"We had a plan in place for the teachers and the children over a year ago that we have been deploying.

"There are 150 children and teachers who are on the Park today.

"That is only for the Park.

"We will increase that to about 300 or 400 tomorrow and we will keep going on that.

"We really are doing the best we can but it is not an exact science, as we saw with swimming last night and with basketball and the American match yesterday.

"We are working within the numbers that each of the accredited areas look at.

"We have done a lot already.

"At a lot of venues, we have taken, for preliminary rounds, away all of the non-tabled seats and sold those out.

"So we have done an awful lot already in the lead up."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) director of communications Mark Adams said the organisation is looking to help.

"From the IOC's point of view we are doing a number of things," he said.

"From that you will understand that clearly we are giving up those seats in those accredited areas on a case-by-case basis.

"At the USA basketball game there were 200 or 300 people who could not get into the accredited area because it was completely packed.

"So it is horses for courses."

By Tom Degun at the Main Press Centre on the Olympic Park in London

Source: www.insidethegames.biz