Thaindian News

London, Aug 2 (IANS) China’s Olympic badminton doubles champion Yu Yang has decided to quit the sport, hours after being disqualified from the Games here for “throwing a match”.

Her announcement came as Beijing ordered its team to apologise for the fiasco.

“This is my last competition. Goodbye Badminton World Federation, goodbye my beloved badminton,” the 26-year-old wrote on the country’s Weibo microblogging service, saying the athletes had used the rules to maximise their chances after organisers changed the event’s format.

“You have heartlessly shattered our dreams … It’s that simple, not complicated at all. But this is unforgivable,” she said.

Chinese officials have yet to comment on her decision. The careers of top athletes, including their retirements, are usually carefully controlled by sports authorities.

Yu took gold in the women’s doubles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with another partner.

Yu and her teammate Wang Xiaoli were disqualified by badminton’s governing body Wednesday, along with two South Korean pairs and an Indonesian duo for behaving “in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport”.

The round-robin arrangements gave players an interest in losing so that they could face easier contests at the elimination stage. Spectators booed them off the court, enraged by the farcical matches in which players deliberately served into the net, hit shots wide and missed easy returns.