8 Badminton Players Disqualified From Olympics

Head badminton referee Torsten Berg, second from right, talks to South Korea's head badminton coach Sung Han-kook, right, after Berg issued a black card to the players in the women's doubles badminton match between South Korea's Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, and Indonesia's Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

By ROB HARRIS, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Eight female badminton doubles players were disqualified Wednesday from the London Olympics after trying to lose matches to receive a more favorable place in the tournament.

The Badminton World Federation announced its ruling after investigating two teams from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia. It punished them for "not using one's best efforts to win a match" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport" in matches Tuesday night.

[PHOTOS: Make Way For the 2012 Olympics.]

"We applaud the federation for having taken swift and decisive action," IOC spokesman Mark Adams told The Associated Press. "Such behavior is incompatible with the Olympic values."

Erick Thohir, the head of Indonesia's Olympic team, told the AP that the Indonesian team will appeal. The BWF said South Korea had also appealed.

The competition was to continue later Wednesday. The BWF said there would be quarterfinals in the women's doubles, meaning at least one eliminated team would be placed into the last eight after the China team chose not to challenge the decision.

Thohir accused Chinese players of losing on purpose in the past.

"China has been doing this so many times and they never get sanctioned by the BWF," Thohir said. "On the first game yesterday when China did it, the BWF didn't do anything. If the BWF do something on the first game and they say you are disqualified, it is a warning for everyone."

IOC Vice President Craig Reedie, the former head of the international badminton federation, welcomed the decision.

"Sport is competitive," Reedie told the AP. "If you lose the competitive element, then the whole thing becomes a nonsense.

"You cannot allow a player to abuse the tournament like that, and not take firm action. So good on them."

The eight disqualified players are world doubles champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China and their South Korean opponents Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na, along with South Korea's Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung and Indonesia's Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii.

The players went before a disciplinary hearing Wednesday, a day after spectators at the arena booed their performance after it became clear they were deliberately trying to lose.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge had been at the venue but had left shortly before the drama unfolded. The IOC said it would allow badminton's ruling body to handle the matter.

Paul Deighton, chief executive officer of the London organizers, said there would be no refunds for the evening's badminton program. Chairman Sebastian Coe called what happened "depressing," adding "who wants to sit through something like that?"

Teams blamed the introduction of a round-robin stage rather than a straight knockout tournament as the main cause of the problem. The round-robin format can allow results to be manipulated to earn an easier matchup in the knockout round.

The Chinese players tried to rig the draw after its second-seeded pair unexpectedly lost to a Danish team in the morning. That placed the No. 2 pair on course for a semifinal meeting with Wang and Yu, instead of the final.

[Check it Out: The 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials.]

Wang and Yu then deliberately set out to lose so they would go into the bottom half of the draw. They hardly exerted themselves, and neither did the South Koreans, drawing jeers of derision from the crowd and warnings from the umpire and tournament referee Torsten Berg. Wang and Yu eventually got what they wanted by losing.

An hour later, the South Korean team of Ha and Kim took to the court and decided to also try to lose to the Indonesians to avoid meeting Wang and Yu in the quarterfinals. Early on, all four players were warned by the umpire for not trying hard, and Berg returned and produced black cards to disqualify both pairs, but the cards were rescinded on a promise of better play.

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NBC Offers Plenty of Live Olympics Online

Chinese gymnast Chen Yibing performs on the rings during the Artistic Gymnastic men's team final at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Monday, July 30, 2012, in London.

By ANICK JESDANUN, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Soccer and balance beam gymnastics on the desktop. Swimming and badminton on the laptop. Boxing on the iPhone. Gymnasts' floor exercises on the iPad. Vault routines on an Android phone. And rowing on TiVo.

Welcome to the Olympics of the digital age.

For the first time, NBC Sports is showing all competition and medal ceremonies live over the Internet in the U.S. The unprecedented online coverage addresses one of my biggest gripes with Olympics coverage in past years: NBC used to withhold the popular sports for prime-time television and show them on a delayed basis.

[PHOTOS: The London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony.]

At one point, I had seven live streams going at once, plus NBC's TV broadcast recorded on my digital-video recorder. I got flustered with all the choices in no time but I appreciate having the choice to view any event live. Tape delay doesn't work anymore. It's especially compounded by the five-hour time difference between New York and London.

Although the coverage at NBCOlympics.com isn't flawless, it's the network's best effort yet and comes a long way from 2000, when "video" meant still images grabbed from television footage. It's also the first time live video is extending to mobile devices, through apps for Apple and Android phones and tablet computers.

So get up at 4 a.m. EDT this Thursday to watch an elimination round in women's archery. Or watch the woman's marathon in its entirety this Sunday at 6 a.m. Some sports offer multiple feeds, so you can keep watching the javelin throw even if everyone else turns to Usain Bolt on the track.

All this is free, but there's a big catch: You must have a TV subscription with a cable, satellite or phone company at a service level that comes with CNBC and MSNBC.

I was able to watch live video once I verified my cable account (for Time Warner Cable, I simply had to enter the same username and password used to access bills). It's something I'm supposed to have to do only once per computer or mobile device, though I ran into a few hiccups because of cookie settings on my browser. If you have trouble, you can get a one-time, four-hour pass for free while you figure it out.

If you still get television over the air or don't even own a TV set, you'll be able to access non-video features, including a prime-time companion app with trivia and quizzes. But videos will be limited to highlights, previews and other clips. Full-length video won't be available until two days after an event takes place.

Dare I say I'd gladly pay $25, $50 or even $100 to watch the streams if I didn't have the required TV subscription. I get most of what I watch through Hulu, iTunes or Netflix, and all I need cable for is the occasional big event such as the Olympics. I'd rather pay a one-time fee for that than a recurring cable bill.

That mentality is precisely the reason NBC isn't making live video available for non-subscribers. NBC paid nearly $1.2 billion for U.S. rights to the London Games. Increasingly, it makes money from fees that cable and satellite companies pay to carry channels on their lineups. NBC and other networks get a good chunk of your cable bill each and every month and don't want to jeopardize that for a fee you pay just once.

[PHOTOS: The 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials.]

Of course, when NBC chose not to show the opening ceremonies live, even online, links to unauthorized video feeds quickly circulated. I was able to watch a feed from British television — briefly, until my conscience and work demands got to me.

For the majority of Americans who do pay for TV, you're in for a treat.

Most of the video steams allow you to rewind the action. Start from any point if you are joining late or after an event is over, or hit a replay button to go back several seconds.

The exceptions are with high-profile sports such as swimming and gymnastics. If you missed it, you typically must wait for television — or the next day online.

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Saudi Woman in Olympics Displays Fight to Kingdom

Saudi Arabia's Wojdan Shahrkani and Puerto Rico's Melissa Mojica compete during the women's 78-kg judo competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics on Aug. 3, 2012, in London.

By AYA BATRAWY, Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — There was no way Alaa al-Mizyen, a 22-year-old Saudi investment consultant, was missing this Olympic match. While her family slept in late Friday morning, she alone was awake and glued to the TV.

[Experts Say Saudi Women's Debut Means Very Little for Gender Equality]

It was, after all, her first ever opportunity to cheer a Saudi woman in the world's biggest sporting event.

The participation of Saudi judo player Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani had raised the scorn of the kingdom's ultraconservative Islamic clerics, who said she was dishonoring herself by fighting in front of men, including the male referee and judges. And the match Friday was a swift defeat for Shahrkhani: The teenager was thrown by her Cuban opponent in just over a minute.

But for her supporters, it was an enduring, landmark victory.

Shahrkhani was taking a stand against culture and customs that have little to do with Islam but are used to justify hardline interpretations that restrict women, al-Mizyen said.

"There is a very fine line between religion and culture and customs. People are holding so tightly to customs and traditions and using Islam to defend them," she said, speaking by telephone from the Saudi Red Sea coastal city of Jiddah.

The judo match wasn't shown live on Saudi state TV or many other Saudi-owned satellite channels, though it was unclear if that was because of the controversy swirling around her. Other state-owned stations in the region focused instead on other athletes or regional crises. But the match was shown on several Arab satellite sports channels.

Many in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region missed the fleeting moment altogether simply because the match coincided with the middle of traditional Friday prayers.

[Full Coverage: 2012 London Games]

But her supporters watched closely.

"It is beautiful that she played and in front of people and proved her presence and stated that Saudi women are not all servants at home," said Wajeha al-Huwaidir, a Saudi activist who launched a campaign before the 2008 Beijing Olympics to support women's participation.

Rafid Fatani, a Saudi who pulled out all the stops to make sure he could attend Shahrkhani's match in London, walked out of the stadium afterwards proudly waving his nation's flag.

Some in Saudi Arabia use criticism of participation by women in society "just so they can empower their cause, and their cause is just to put women down."

"They have been brought up to believe women are subordinates, are second class citizens and should not have the same opportunity as men," he added.

Shahrkhani dressed in a loose, cream-colored judo suit and a tightly-fitted black cap that served in the place of a traditional hijab, or headscarf worn by conservative women to cover their hair. The modified hijab was a concession to the sport to avoid choking. In a competition where everyone else holds a high-level black belt, Shahrkhani has only attained a blue.

Shahrkhani's detractors, though, see her participation as a deviation from Islamic mores and an attempt by the West to co-opt the Arab world's most conservative nation, home to Islam's holiest site.

In Saudi clerics' eyes, the cap fell far short of the all-encompassing black robes and face veil that they insist women should wear. And there was the fact that the Saudi judoka was competing in front of men.

Saudi preacher Sittam al-Dusri told The Associated Press that Shahrkhani's family should have protected her "as a precious gem" from the eyes of men.

"It is not important for the West that the Saudi woman participates well, but that she goes out in dress that does not conform to Islamic rules," he said. "Wojdan is a martyr of Westernization and liberalism."

Women in Saudi Arabia face heavy restrictions under its ultraconservative interpretation of Islam. They must have written approval of a male relative before they can travel or work and are not allowed to drive. They are often the target of the unwanted attention of the kingdom's intrusive religious police, who ensure men and women do not mix in public.

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