South Korean Soccer Player Did Not Receive His Medal Because Of Politics [London Olympics]

Aug 12, 2012 11:20 AM  

Park Jong-soo played all 90 minutes in South Korea's 2-0 win over Japan in Friday's bronze medal game. As he walked off the field he held up the sign you see, which apparently reads "Dokdo is our territory." The reference is to a group of islands between South Korea and Japan in waters (the Sea of Japan, or the East Sea...or the Korea East Sea depending on your perspective) rich with natural resources. Both South Korea and Japan claim sovereignty over the islands.

His protest came hours after South Korea's president, Lee Myung-bak, paid a surprise visit to the islands. The visit infuriated Japan, which withdrew its ambassador from Seoul in protest.

Personally, I would have thrown some good ol' scare quotes around "protest," but I don't work for The Times. Anyway, the holding of a sign was determined to be a political statement and all the governing bodies of Soccer, with their strict anti-political statements/pro-political corruption stance, got pissed and will hold their own investigations. London Olympics officials asked that South Korea handle this mess and South Korea decided to keep Park off the podium while the rest of his teammates received their medals.

South Korean Denied Medal Over Politics [New York Times]

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Disgraced Badminton Player Announces Retirement, Blames Poor Performance On Injuries [Video]

One of the eight badminton players who was disqualified from the Olympics for match-fixing is fighting back against those allegations, while also announcing her retirement from professional competition.

Yu Yang (pictured, left) took to Tencent Weibo (a Twitter-type of microblogging service popular in China) to respond to a reporter's posting that Wang Xiaoli, her teammate, had injured her knee in warmups before the match that ultimately ended their Olympics. The reporter, Zhang Nan, wrote this, perhaps in a desperate spot to explain what one media outlet called a "farce" of a match:

I just learned a piece of information from the team ~~ Wang Xiaoli injured her right knee in warmups before today's competition ~ because they had already advanced out of the group stage, they held back* during the match ~ also discovered opponents basically didn't warm up ~ understood they had no intention of winning the match ~ during the match the opponent first shaved a point ~ affected their [Chinese team's] state of mind ~ in end the led to today's situation ~ if only there were nothing to Wang Xiaoli's injury ~~

Which prompted this response from Yu:

Tomorrow is the knockout round, we don't have much time to make adjustments. No matter the result, we'll give it our all. Hope fans can understand our situation.

Hours later, the Badminton World Federation announced that Yu, her teammate, and six others had been disqualified for match-fixing, even though it's the result of an inherently flawed system, one that allows players to essentially decide which part of the bracket they'd like to be seeded into, provided they can lose at the right time. But after the BWF's announcement, Yu took to Tencent to drop this revelation:

This is my last competition. Goodbye Badminton World Federation, goodbye my beloved badminton.

Followed by:

We were simply injured, simply chose to abandon the match within the rules. Simply to play better in the second phase of competition, the knockout rounds. This is the first time the Olympics changed the rules to have pool play before knockout rounds, do you guys understand an athlete's injury? Four years of preparation and hard work with injury, (they) say it's gone and our right to compete is gone. You guys ruthlessly* shattered our dreams. Situation's just that simple, not complicated, but is so unforgivable.

So you see, they were just injured and wanted to get the match over with. That's all it really was. Had nothing at all with them trying to get a cushier seeding in their bracket. Nope, nothing to see here.

[Beijing Cream]

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After The Expected Ass-Kicking, A Tunisian Player Had Kobe Bryant Autograph His Shoe [Video]

Jul 31, 2012 7:08 PM  

The U.S. overcame a slow start to thrash an unexpectedly tough-playing Tunisian team 110-63, which meant the usual courtesies extended to the losing side of handshakes, hugs, and the occasional picture. Tunisian forward Mohamed Hdidane—who surprised a lot of us with basketball we didn't expect from a Tunisian league player—took things a bit further, asking Kobe to autograph his shoe.

(He then put the shoe back on, and we're curious to see if he's still wearing it when Tunisia plays its next game.) [NBC SN]

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Player Sent Home For Threatening To "Burn All Of You [Koreans], Bunch Of Retards" [Athlete Meltdowns]

Jul 30, 2012 2:50 PM  

Last week we told you about Voula Papachristou, the Greek triple jumper whose xenophobic, right-wing attitude got her booted from the Olympics. Today, Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella has been sent home after he decided his Twitter followers should hear his own batshit remarks.

Morganella and his Swiss side lost 2-1 yesterday at the hands of the South Koreans. After the match, Morganella took to Twitter to call his opponents a "bunch of retards." "Je les tous Defonce Coréens, allez vous tous Bruler, bande de trisos," he wrote. Roughly translated, "I will smash all the Koreans, go burn all of you, bunch of retards." Morganella did apologize, but his account has since been deleted and he's headed back to Switzerland after being kicked off the team.

And I thought the Swiss were supposed to be peaceful.

Switzerland Olympic team expels footballer from London Games over racist Twitter message [AP]

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