Eight Badminton Players Kicked Out Of The Olympics For Throwing Matches (Watch Video)

Business Insider ^ | 08/01/2012 | Tony Manfred

[ops33]

I miss the burly, beefy East German women with their overabundance of facial hair.

[PuzzledInTX]

Poppyco....er....Shuttlecock! (oh, never mind)

[Alberta's Child]

I'm not going to pass judgement on these competitors because it seems like the rules actually encouraged this sort of thing.

But this incident reminds me of a great story I heard from some years ago involving two cross-country skiiers from Norway. I may have the names wrong, but I think one of them was the legendary skiier Bjorn Daehlie, who was competing in either 1994 or 1998 for what would have been a record number of career gold medals in cross-country events.

The story, as I remember it, was told by Thomas Alsgaard, who was about five years younger than Daehlie and was competing against him in the race. Daehlie was a national hero in Norway, and Alsgaard was in the lead late in the race. He didn't want to win the race and actually slowed down to let Daehlie catch up, until he heard Daehlie scolding him from several yards behind. The story as I remember it was that Daehlie told him that if he (Daehlie) won the race, he'd wait at the finish line for Alsgaard and then kick his @ss for settling for second place.

This is the kind of thing that legends are made of. Alsgaard won the gold medal, Daehlie got the silver, and they're both champions no matter how you look at it.

[x]

"This is why we can't have goodminton, people" -- Andy Levy, Red Eye

[GreenHornet]

It’s a racket.

For years now, there have been rumors of mob influence in fixing badminton games in this country. Yes, the mob has made millions from drugs, prostitution, and loan sharking, but badminton is where the real money is.