8 Women Out

In what will surely go down as one of the most tantalizing scandals in Olympic history, eight badminton players including the reigning world champions were expelled from the Games last week for "not using one's best efforts to win a match".  Since then, the debate has raged as the whether not trying is cheating, or not.

I'll say that it is not. Clearly, using aids, drugs, or devices to gain an unfair advantage is cheating and should be dealt with accordingly, but when a pre-defined format allows an athlete to choose their path to the podium based upon where they rank in the standings, it is the format that should be expelled, not the athlete.

Don't blame the athletes

After the four women's pairs had qualified for the quarterfinals of the tournament, they began intentionally losing games in order to dictate a more favorable match-up in the next round. It seems to me that that's strategic and not worthy of being ejected from the largest sporting event on the planet.

After all, athletes at the highest level of sport "tank" performances all the time to gain an advantage in the future. Consider a swimmer or sprinter who knows that he only needs to finish in the top 3 to advance to the next round. Once he knows that he has 3rd or better clinched and cannot be caught, he often lets his foot off the gas, ending the race with a less than spectacular finish. Even world's greatest Olympian Michael Phelps would be guilty of this. Or what about a soccer team that knows its next round destiny before their final round-robin match even starts and thus rests all their star players, consequently losing the match?  Should these types of performance also lead to expulsions for "not using one's best efforts to win"? Of course not; in fact, we applaud them for having the savvy to save themselves for the greater battle ahead.

The eight expelled badminton athletes could not have made it any more obvious that they were trying to lose and perhaps that it what doesn't sit well with the masses, but using every available strategy to enhance your chance of winning is not cheating and shouldn't be a crime. A well thought out format that would have taken this scenario into consideration could have prevented this "gamesmanship".

Like everything else that has gone wrong with the 2012 London Olympics thus far, blame the organizers.

Match Point

Ah, the Olympics.  That quadrennial competition when the world focuses on the "faster, higher, stronger" elements of humankind.

I guess the feats of athleticism in beach volleyball in London, however, have been sparse, as the attire, not the competition has received the most press.

For those who are unfamiliar with the sport, a female beach volleyball athlete wears little more than what the masses would call a bikini as a uniform. As for those, including some members of the media, who have evidently been put off by this, I can only ask, "What did you expect the uniform of choice to be for a sport that evolved on beaches in sunny climes?  Parkas?" We assume that a sport using such fashionable parlance as "chicken wing", "kill", "cobra", and "missile" would feature athletes who are contemporaneously attired.


Are the toned, tanned, scantily clad proving too much for some in the press?

I don't pretend to be a fan of beach volleyball. Nor am I a fan of judo, weight lighting, syncho-diving, or a bunch of other sports that we see only once every four years. I'm guessing 95% of those watching some of the obscure Olympic sports would claim the same. But if you're patriotic and looking for a proud moment, then you'll support your nation's athletes and cheer them on, regardless of the sport. We can do without the banter of the media asserting that guys only watch beach volleyball to ogle pretty women jumping around in bikinis. Most of us can keep our hormones in check long enough to watch a match and don't need to smoke a cigarette and take a nap between sets.

Besides, are beach volleyball athletes any less scantily attired than some track and field athletes? Not really. The only difference is that one is wearing shoes and the other is barefooted. Perhaps the podophiles are having a field day? Please excuse the pun.

As always, some phenomenal stories will come out of  the Games. Let's dwell on those and devote a little less press to uniforms.