"I saw how the Chinese were playing rather strangely in many matches and for many years, so the new information doesn't shock me. Already back then we were upset. But if you ignore the deeply unethical way of doing things, China was actually acting rather wisely. I could never beat Gong Zhichao, and I much preferred playing against Ye Zhaoying. There's no doubt that the Chinese knew this, and that they had a much better chance of winning gold by getting Gong Zhichao into the final."
No. If the only bit of information you have is a single game, then yes, you'd be right to assume the victor was the better player. But in an iterated game, you can easily get into a state where regardless of the outcome of a single game you're still pretty confident that one player is better than the other. It would take many games to tip your estimate. But you don't have many games, you just have the one coming up. What you don't want to have happen is a minor fluke, causing the worse player (estimated win chance 25%) to move on to the finals where they're more likely to lose.
There could also be factors that cause the odds to not follow a simple ordering rule. It could be that player A will likely beat C, B will likely lose to C, and yet B will likely beat A, due to playstyle or something.
But the former thing is more likely what's going on. A beats C is 50% odds, B beats C is 30% odds, A beats B is 70% odds, you want A or B to win and they're playing next, followed by the winner playing against C. B winning can absolutely happen, but it sucks for you if it does.
Play style matching matters.
Separately, in video games definitely the concept of winrate stacking/smurfing. Definitely not at the olympic level, but wr% does not necessarily mean a specific win.
Do you think the better player always wins? What's your explanation for the world series being best of 7?
> But if you ignore the deeply unethical way of doing things, China was actually acting rather wisely. I could never beat Gong Zhichao, and I much preferred playing against Ye Zhaoying. There's no doubt that the Chinese knew this, and that they had a much better chance of winning gold by getting Gong Zhichao into the final.
When people play sports, there is always a similar sort of matchup, where different people matchup differently with each other.
Has war ever been about prestige ?
The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of excellence in sport, not how to best game the system. It would be one thing to simply forfeit the match but to have to pretend to play well with the ultimately goal of losing is simply disgusting and such behaviour should absolutely be banned.
A big one is that the Olympics need to keep appealing to viewers around the world. They need to stay relevant with the audience, so that they can keep getting both corporate and government money, and also wield political influence.
Stoking nationalist fervours around the world is definitely part of that appeal. But not the only one.
This whole patriotism thing in sports seems silly. Two highly trained and motivated people are playing, let the better person win the match. Why does it have to be so hard?
Maybe it is time to stop playing national anthem and play the winner’s favorite song instead. Wave a white flag instead of the national flag.
I think players should be not allowed to disclose their nationalities in the Olympics
By and large, people still prefer watching the FIFA World Cup which is organised along national lines.
Similar for many other sports. Eg many major tennis events are typically not run along national lines; but viewers still care about nationality of the participants.
Perhaps you should discuss this idea with some former/aspiring/current olympians. Overwhelmingly they consider it a great honor and one of the most memorable, rewarding events of their life to represent their country. Shockingly, even in countries which aren't like China where the athletes are essentially forced to say these things.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Zhili
The gist is that she was ordered to lose in one World Table Tennis Championships, but refused and proceeded to be the champion.
Later she wasn't selected for the next Olympic, which she felt was the punishment for her disobedience. She later immigrated to Japan and played for their national team and gave China some trouble for a while.
There is also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badminton_at_the_2012_Summer_O...
The funny thing is, they do that in table tennis (actually also badminton in some other cases other than the one in the article) not even just to secure the gold medal: since China is/was so dominant in this sport, they sometimes do it to ensure certain player can get his/her "grand slam" [2] (to win all the major tournaments in their career).
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_tennis#Notable_players
Many Chinese players fall out with their brutal system. Either they barge and do nothing, like Liu Shiwen in the last decade, who was the very best player, but had some terrible losses to non-chinese players. Thus she was not allowed to play Olympics as World No #1. The most upsetting thing is that she lost to Ex-Chinese players, who left the system and played for Korea or Singapore. Some even for European countries, but only one ex-Top 10 player.
He Zhili played for Japan, Harimoto Tomukazu's parents also left the Chinese system at very young age and played for Japan. Last Olympics were extremely stressful for China because of this Ex-Chinese player who won against the very best, effectively unbeatable Chinese superstars, with new techniques. Then the Chinese looked very vulnerable because several European players also took that up and beat the GOAT Ma Long in a series of losses. Some 2nd rank Bejing politician took his chances and fired the coaches, the 3 best players defended their coaches and wanted to protect their superior system from some amateur destroying everything for his political chances. So the whole team was recalled from the ongoing World Championships, and didn't play for the next years. (Ma Long also had a knee injury). A new young Chinese protege didn't turn out to be winner against Harimoto, so after 3 years the old trainer at least in the men's team was allowed to come back, the old players won again, and China won almost all gold medals. They just lost one, even if they developed a secret win strategy against their biggest opponent, a young Japanese, and surprised them in the finals, but Liu Shiwen's partner fell off, and they lost Mixed Doubles. So Liu Shiwen is now forever dirty, not winning any Olympics gold. But she stayed in the system, and still is best paid player worldwide. She will probably retire this year.
However, no Ex-Chinese player ever won a gold medal against them. This would be their worst upset, it might even trigger a downfall of the political system.
Keep in mind it's not any "particular" individual, everyone take turns. So if you're "close", you have the priority. If you already have one? Well you can try to not push so hard.
And it's not like it happens all the time, just in a few cases. It's still largely merit-based especially for things like Olympics trial, you have to earn it no matter who you are.
It has something to do with prestige and respect, often enforced by the team owner. Lewis Hamilton made his first huge win by ignoring such an instruction.
Not only told to loose. I think in at least one case someone was told to crash, completely blocking the raceway on an already narrow curve. I wouldn't be surprised if that where common even as in some sports one bad racer can take out half the competition.
Excuse me, what exactly are you referring to? His first GP win was just a regular race without any controversy, and his first championship win was... not impressive, to say it mildly. He did everything to lose and was only saved by Timo Glock slipping on the last lap.
It is also known that Hamilton was always favoured by the team owners and often benefitted from team orders throughout his career.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/analysis-why-did-vettel-i...
I'm sure that it's for the same reason football teams have their top scorer take their team's penalty kicks.
Funnily enough, at least in this particular report, it is her coach who told the story. Really shows how this behavior was normalized enough for it not to be considered too shameful to admit.
The reason Ye and her husband are persona non grata is unrelated to the Olympic incident, but because her husband is involved in the "New Federal State of China" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Federal_State_of_China). Supposedly this is what the "fierce criticism" the article is referring to.
shows how this behavior was normalized enough for it not to be considered too shameful to admit
Perhaps if they trained their players with a collective mentality where the greater good justifies letting go of personal success, this would make sense.
But I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Most Olympic athletes create a personal goal system, especially if competing in an individual discipline. Winning a gold medal has a profound meaning for them.
Helping their country to win a gold medal by giving up their personal chance to do it and winning a bronze medal instead has way less meaning.
So you’re not wrong, but it’s still pretty fucked up if you ask me.
That's the case in PRC athletic system, especially in events PRC dominate in, where the bench is deep enough to get multiple podium placements, so roster crafting like this happens to maximize country medal count.
> personal goal system, especially if competing in an individual discipline
This is really where individual vs collective sport systems/philosophies diverge. PRC state sport development programs are more about reflecting state capacity / winning medals than individual prestige (like USSR). Young kids from backwater shitholes with little other prospects gets recruited into the athletic development pipeline and unless they're thoroughly dominant, are just one of several alternatives that can guarantee medals in events PRC specializes in. These athletes generally aren't kids of upper middle class families from developing countries with resources to largely negotiate through the amateur sport system themselves who are then apportioned commiserate glory when they win. PRC sport developement is a more all empassing national / institutional effort - it's a team effort from day one that generates enough talent in certain events that's feasible to play team order shenanigans.
This.
Imagine a life time of having been hammered in day and night that you need to try harder to be the best and suffering is nothing when seeking eternal glory and win over everyone and achieve your full potential and this is your only shot...
...and then, when you are almost there, here comes the party official and says "wow not so fast there."
Then their is the need to lie about it a sure sign of moral wrong doing.
Then there is the act of subverting an individuals career and choices with ugly coercion that is only possible in the context of a society so broken that people may be disappeared, destroyed, or tortured for displeasing dear leader or his minions.
It's a many layered shit sandwich of gross that only appears bland when simple corruption doesn't have to give way to making good on threats.
It creates some interesting problems which vary between the different types of sport. Pre-games the programme is going to be set up so that all the athletes cooperate to make each other better and maximise the programme's chance of success, but the athletes are also internally motivated to minimise their opponents' chance of beating them at the games.
In my experience there's plenty of meta-game going on all the time! (Disclaimer - I'm not an Olympic athlete myself, I'm just close to the programme socially in a particular sport).
Do they consider gold medals as a sort of confirmation that their bloody regime is doing good ?
I am talking about you china and ruzzia.
IOC should ban china or let only one athlete/one pair of athletes compete
The IOC is a corrupt clusterfuck.
I wouldn't be surprised if the IOC's involvement in these things went past just turning a blind eye.
Of course. The Olympics have been a way to signal a country’s prowess for generations.
https://apnews.com/article/sports-virus-outbreak-afghanistan...
As we have transitioned our economy from having careers to jobs and from owning to financing, the cheap stuff is all we can afford.
People still care but they just care more about surviving.
The cases aren't entirely comparable. F1 drivers and Tour de France racers are highly compensated and they go into races knowing the strategy. Being compelled to lose against your will by your national organization sucks. On the other hand, I expect she went into the Chinese badminton team with some idea that this sort of thing might happen.
Badminton players much more a personal endeavour - one person and their racquet turning up and doing battle.
Nations deciding who will be representing them, and the nation anthem playing on the podium are the most visible side, there's many declarations from the founder to the same effect.
In the Ancient Greek times the Olympic Games were an opportunities for friends an enemies to come together and have FUN!
It wasn't about who won the most medals. Can you imagine if Sparta and Athens were competing for the highest number of golds? Pathetic. But that's what's happening today.
Not sure if you're being serious or being sarcastic. Any evidence for your claim?
The ancient Olympics (as the name itself implies!) is about religion. Olympus!
Violence, murder, corruption was part of it. Perhaps as much as it is today.
"Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act he was banished by the Cretans."
"In 67, the Roman Emperor Nero competed in the chariot race at Olympia. He was thrown from his chariot and was thus unable to finish the race. Nevertheless, he was declared the winner on the basis that he would have won if he had finished the race."
(Yes, this is prima facie ridiculous. But also kind of fun to imagine.)
> For when he was contending for the wild olive with the last remaining competitor, whoever he was, the latter got a grip first, and held Arrhachion, hugging him with his legs, and at the same time he squeezed his neck with his hands. Arrhachion dislocated his opponent's toe, but expired owing to suffocation; but he who suffocated Arrhachion was forced to give in at the same time because of the pain in his toe. The Eleans crowned and proclaimed victor the corpse of Arrhachion.
54th Olympiad
It’s a decent enough trick and I’m a bit surprised that a county would compete against itself in the semifinals.
What does that mean?
> In an exclusive interview with TV 2 SPORT, the Chinese champion tells the whole story for the first time about what exactly happened 22 years ago at the Sydney Olympics, when she was instructed to take a dive in the semi-final against her compatriot, Gong Zhichao.
For example, in the "Disgrace of Gijón" [1] incident in the 1982 FIFA (Soccer) World Cup, Austria were accused of throwing a match to West Germany so both teams could advance; leading FIFA to change the schedules to prevent this from happening again (or at least make it more difficult).
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In this case a single person was ordered by a powerful government to self-sacrifice with the knowledge that if she didn't her career was effectively over - you know China wouldn't think twice about pulling her funding, or choose not to select her again.
They're both very disappointing cases, but one had a very real consequence for the people and the sport involved - the other seemingly continues unabated.
Considering the number of people involved in the cheating though, it seems to me that the Austria/Germany one is much worse? Two entire squads, or at least the 11 players + substitutes unanimously agreed to cheat; whereas in the China badminton case it was a couple of players and presumably at most four or five coaches and selectors above them.
But now that you mention outcome, I'm thinking again from the perspective of the Algerian team rather than the sport itself. They could've been the first African nation to make it out of the group stages of the world cup but were denied it by a third party, whereas I suppose at least in the Badminton case the player had some kind of agency (even if it was unlikely they'd choose not to obey the instruction to throw the game). So I'm coming around to the idea that Austria/Germany was actually worse :D
To add a lukewarm ending to the tale, Algeria eventually managed to make it out of the World Cup group stages in Brazil in 2014. Unfortunately they faced an in-form Germany and lost 2-1 after extra time. Germany would go on to win the competition, completely destroying Brazil 7-1 on the way, so Algeria maybe don't feel so hard done by that time.
It is massively unfair to a top athlete to not being allowed to compete because he's the second best in India, or China, or the United States, when a much lower-ranked athlete from, say, Burkina Faso is allowed to run merely because of their nationality.
But yeah, I know most people won't accept this. That is cool. They'll continue to enjoy the Olympics; I'll continue to ignore it.
* In principle, I think a contest that aims to be the pinnacle of a sport, as the Olympics events do generally aim (Association Football being an exception), should be an open contest. However, I'm not sure if an Olympics that was formally open would actually be treated as anything other than effectively an international contest. Still, maybe open would be better (I'd be happy to see it tried), but it is not hard to see that it might cause issues of its own.
* in international competition, it is probably not even fair to consider it a problem, as it is really just an accepted part of such systems.
The problem with the Olympics is a different one - an organisation that creates a highly complex event with construction and travel is dependant on national governments to support it (even if there is no corruption involved) - and that will invariably lead to said countries doing it for the prestige. I guess the only way around that would be setting up permanent Olympic venues and giving them a status like the UN General Assembly building
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Olympians_at_the_O...
> According to the Chinese sports couple, they still own more than ten properties in China, probably worth more than EUR 135 million, and Hao Haidong is the co-owner of several companies.
Thats a lot of money tied up in China for people banned from it. I looked up Hao Haidong's wiki and looks like theyre heavily affiliated with Steve Bannon and the absolutely ridiculous group New Federal State of China.
Mind you, im not saying this article is wrong. I 100% believe she was treated unfairly and made to throw the match. And im not pro-china by anymeans. But like.. anytime I see Bannon or NFSC or GTV, I just know theres a grift involved.
"Look at these 2 nice people, how sad that they're forced to live in exile. Oh no , they're affiliated with Steve Bannon."
The current world super power is guilty of far far worse than arranging Olympic athletes like chess pieces.
"If you cannot win cleanly, just win" (quoting from memory).
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-history-cheat...
Anyone who has watched Olympic boxing over the years knows that "the rules of the game, justice and the Olympic spirit" have always been non-existent.
> “My parents have said, ‘Hao is no longer part of this family’.”
> Ye Zhaoying interrupts and says that both her daughter and her father back home in China are furious with her.
> “My father always says that I should live my life and stop talking about the Chinese government. They’re firmly against what we’re doing.”
This is just so sad, her family probably didn't even have much choice in the matter. Either disown the deviant or face punishment for her speech.
That is an optimistic take. Chinese previous generations I've known in my circle are also stepped in the genuine belief of filial piety and national loyalty.
Really crazy how much influence some people have.
This is part of Iran's Islamic government's symbolic gesture to show that they do not recognize a country by that name, and so their representatives do not compete against them.
This has caused a huge amount of damage on these athletes' professional lives. Imagine an Olympic competition, you might be in the right shape to compete in the Olympic only once, and you miss that not by your chance.
No officials in Iran take the responsibility of this decision, no one knows what institute forces athletes to abandon their competition, but this continues.
Many of top athletes migrate to other countries (usually just stay in the country they are for the competition as refugees, and do not come back with the team, then they move to another country) for a chance to compete free from this restriction.
Teams certainly do such strategizing in sports like cycling.
An elite athlete also does not have anything to do with the average Joe out Jane, so let's stop pretending about health and normality.
I played volleyball for my uni, it was a nightmare and I gave up because of the stress and lack of fun. I then played in "business league" and our team was dreadful. We were always messy but this was pure fun and joy. The other teams knew we were bad and they we would loose, so they played cool, had fun with combinations that they would not risk with other teams etc.
We usually ended with 4 or 5 sets because everyone wanted the match to last. And then beer afterwards (I arranged for special funding because we were always the ones to buy the first round...). We had the only mixed team (and thanks god, because the girls were systematically saving the team's ass)
This is what I call real, fun, great sport.
1. Roy Jones Jr. - Park Si-Heon 1988
2. Floyd Mayweather - Serafim Todorov 1996
3. Michael Conlan - Vladimir Nikitin 2016
4. Evander Holyfield - Kevin Barry 1984
5. Anthony Joshua - Erislandy Savón 2012
Boxing is probably the most rotten thing of the whole Olympics.
Nice! Here you have to spend 6 weeks at a coding camp and join a company developing CRUD apps to make that kind of bonus.