a*****h
发帖数: 201 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Olympics 讨论区 】
发信人: ahmaswh (ahmaswh), 信区: Olympics
标 题:看看npr是如何打羽联和BBC脸的，essay好文一篇
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Wed Aug 1 19:20:09 2012, 美东)
Is What The 'Badminton Eight' Did Really So Bad？
Eight Olympic badminton athletes have been thrown out of the London Games
after being charged by the Badminton World Federation with "not using one's
best efforts to win a match" — which is against the rules of the sport.
Because even some journalists may have forgotten badminton's rules, it
seemed time to take a fresh look.
Ah, Sections 4.5 and 4.16 of the Badminton World Federation players' code.
Much like the debate over whether to use the French or English translation
of U.N. Resolution 242, or the meaning of the comma in the Second Amendment
of the Constitution, the nuances of these two clauses will surely be debated
in the academy for years to come ... well, in badminton academies, at least.
The sections stipulate that a player employ "one's best efforts to win a
match" and bans "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or
detrimental to the sport." That's great as far as that goes, but there is no
definition of the terms.
Most paid spectators at Tuesday's badminton women's doubles matches played
Potter Stewart, knowing "detrimental" when they saw "detrimental" — as four
pairs of players clearly tried to throw matches in order to influence their
draws in the tournament's quarterfinals.
The BBC regarded such tactics as an all-out assault on what is good and holy
about swatting an apparatus fashioned from the left wing of a goose.
"I'm sorry, it's blindly obvious what's going on. It's as if neither player
wants to win the match. There's a simple answer: Tell both players, if you
don't play properly, you're both thrown out of the tournament," intoned the
BBC's announcer at Wembley Arena.
"Tonight has left me with a very nasty taste in the mouth," he added. "What
I have seen tonight is not sport; it is a disgrace."
But it is sport. Manipulating the seeding or draws in tournaments has a long
tradition in sport. And in the early rounds of track or swimming
competitions, athletes who know they've qualified for later rounds will
routinely not push to win a heat.
Isn't easing up in the final few meters and ceding the tape, or the wall, "
not trying to win?"
In the NBA, teams routinely lose games in order to improve their position in
the draft. Acknowledgement of this reality did not just leave NBA
Commissioner David Stern with a bitter taste in his mouth; it put an idea in
his head. And today, the NBA has a lottery to determine draft selection.
That the draft lottery hasn't curbed the scourge of tanking doesn't change
the fact that playing not to win is endemic to sport. There might be more at
play in the case of badminton because Team China seems to be at the center
of such tactics.
Badzine, which calls itself the World's #1 Badminton Magazine, and I can
offer no counterclaims, published findings that show that in international
competition, the Chinese frequently tank quite explicitly by claiming injury
or simply forfeiting matches whenever Chinese players are pitted against
each other.
If the Olympic badminton players could be faulted for anything, it's for not
throwing their matches better.
Sending endless serves out of bounds and hitting returns into the net —
that's no way to tank. Points must be played aboveboard, until the critical
moment when a shot goes awry. The players should have strained and gasped,
and inspected their racquets for holes after misplays.
Then the fans would have gotten a good enough show, and the BBC's broadcast
team would have been left with a much more pleasant taste.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetorch/2012/08/01/157703869/badminto | s*****r
发帖数: 11545 | 2 这简直就是一篇短小精悍的 LAW REVIEW. | l*****o
发帖数: 9235 | | o****o
发帖数: 8077 | |
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