Controversial Chinese women's badminton duo honoured

Chinese women’s badminton duo Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli were awarded the sports honour medals by China’s sports governing body even though the pair were kicked out of the London Olympics for playing to lose. According to the name list published by the China’s General Administration of Sports here Friday, Yu and Wang are among the 100 players to have won this award, reports Xinhua. Yu and Wang were involved in one of the 2012 Olympics’ dark moments when they were among eight players angrily booed and then disqualified for trying to lose round-robin matches in order to secure a more favourable draw in the knock-out stage. [caption id=“attachment_578727” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Tournament referee Torsten Berg (2nd L) speaks to shuttlers from China and South Korea. Officials are investigating a women’s doubles match between China and South Korea at the Games on Tuesday after both teams appeared determined to lose. Reuters[/caption] The pair’s match-fixing scandal in London made their inclusion in the annual awards doubtful, but China’s sports official emphasised that the sports honour medals were established for Chinese world champions - winners of Olympics, World Championships, World Cup in the year - and their coaches. Yu and Wang helped China regain the Uber Cup in May 2012, meaning that the pair won the annual awards as world champions. In the annual awards, Chinese badminton is the biggest winner as 14 players and 21 coaches have been included. In the year of 2012, the Chinese badminton team won both Thomas and Uber Cups and made a clean sweep of Olympic gold medals for the first time. IANS