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Referee Berg returned to court and brandished the black card, signalling disqualification, but it was rescinded and the match resumed when the Indonesians protested.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

Referee Ishanguly Meretnyyazov from Turkmenistan has been expelled from the London Olympics, the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) said yesterday.

A second referee, Frank Scharmach of Germany, was suspended for five days by AIBA and a technical official from Azerbaijan sent home following two controversial decisions at the Olympic competition on Wednesday.

"I deeply regret that we had to take these decisions," AIBA president Wu Ching-Kuo said in a statement.

"However, our main concern has been and will always be the protection of the integrity and fair-play of our competitions. I will take all possible steps to reinforce this."

He later told Reuters: "There is only one truth and we always get to the truth."

Meretnyyazov failed to stop a men's bantamweight bout despite fighter Magomed Abdulhamidov being knocked down six times in the final round. The referee was expelled with immediate effect and AIBA said he was on his way home.

Japan's Satoshi Shimizu, who went into the last round of the bout against the Azerbaijani trailing by seven points, lost the contest by five when all three rounds were scored.

AIBA later overturned the verdict saying Meretnyyazov should have given the Azerbaijani "at least" three standing counts which would have resulted in the contest being stopped.

Iran's Ali Mazaheri accused officials of "a fix" after being disqualified by referee Scharmach in the second round of his opening heavyweight bout against Cuban Jose Larduet Gomez following three warnings for persistent holding.

Mazaheri was leading by two points going into the second round but the Iran team did not appeal and under AIBA rules it is now too late to do so.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored ties with AIBA in 2006 after freezing some funds to the association over controversial scoring decisions at the 2004 Athens Games.

At the time, the IOC expressed concerns over the scoring process and the selection of judges and froze more than US$1 million in payments to AIBA.

The boxing tournament in Athens was marred by several controversial scores that angered spectators and fans.

Source: www.trinidadexpress.com

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