Badminton Scandal: Chinese Cheat At Olympics and the World Loses

Usually the idea of going to the Olympics is to try and win a gold medal for your country. Sometimes that goal is best achieved by using strategy and possibly even losing.

Let me be the first to write about women's team Badminton, in short the Chinese, South Koreans, and Indonesian teams were disqualified for, "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport." This statement was provided by the World Badminton Federation and support by the International Olympic Committee.

"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."

The teams were trying to lose in order to gain better seeding in the knockout round, so they could have a better chance at a gold, or any medal.

Here is the problem I have, and since these are different sports, they have different federations in charge, but are still overseen by the IOC.

Let me introduce you to Turkmenistan's Jennet Saryyeva, she is the young lady who came in last in the women's swimming freestyle 400 meter race. There is no shame in coming in last. Someone always has to in any race.

Her time of  5:40.29 was not just slow, but really slow. In comparison, the last place swimmer at the U.S. Olympic trials of the same distance was Natalie Beale 4:32.46, which was 113th place.

Maybe it's just me, but these two stories are a total contradiction of themselves. The first one punishes the best of the best for ultimately trying to win a gold medal, but then the second one rewards a person for being a citizen of the right country.

I have always wanted to be in the Olympics, and was never really sure what sport was the one for me. Maybe I went about this all wrong, maybe I need to choose the country first, then the sport.