Badminton
Badminton
Chinese player quits badminton after match throwing scandal
One of the star Chinese badminton players disqualified from the Olympics for throwing a match has announced she is quitting the sport, saying her dreams had been "heartlessly shattered".
Badminton boss 'sorry' as athletes expelled over match-fixing scandal
Samantha Lane The head of international badminton has defended the sport's position at the Olympics in light of the scandalous disqualification of eight athletes for deliberately throwing matches.
Badminton racket: teams charged ... for allegedly trying to lose
Glenda Kwek Some of the world's top badminton teams are under investigation after two extraordinary matches in which doubles pairs appeared to fight hard ... to lose.
Badminton team devastated after losing second chance match
Peter Hanlon The disqualification of eight athletes in the badminton doubles competition gave Australia's women's pairing a second chance. Losing it was devastating.
Love turns golden for badminton duo
Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei became the first boyfriend and girlfriend duo to win Olympic gold medals together.
Tanking taint spreads well beyond badminton
Samantha Lane ATHLETES are angry. Officials are embarrassed. But more significantly, Olympic competition is tainted.
Eight badminton players sent home amid tanking fury
Samantha Lane and John Huxley EIGHT badminton players have been sent home from the Olympics after being disqualified for throwing matches in a case condemned by London Games boss Sebastian Coe as ''depressing'' and...
'They're just good at acting normally': Danish duo take aim at Chinese badminton
Samantha Lane Chinese badminton players, two of whom are among the eight women disqualified from the Olympics for deliberately throwing matches to improve their draws, have been accused of manipulating...
Women's badminton quarter-finals
The bombshell that saw the Chinese top seeds, four South Koreans and an Indonesian pair ejected gave a reprieve to Australian duo Renuga Veeran and Leanne Choo, who went through to play Canada in the...
Food poisoning hits Australia's badminton team
Samantha Lane A BOUT of food poisoning in the national badminton camp has rendered three of the five-member Olympic unit bedridden, ruling them out of a pre-Games tune -up against Great Britain, and affected the...
It's time for burgers, badminton and bellyache
Leaping Larry Certain symptoms herald the approach of the Olympic Games.
The price of gold
Robert ''Bob'' Ellicott remembers the moment when Australia's Olympic dream factory became real. It was November 1978 in Canberra.
Those funny, furious and feckless moments
Phil Lutton German superheavyweight lifter Matthias Steiner was one of the truly inspirational stories of 2008, when he won gold in Beijing and took the podium with a photo of his wife, who had died in a car...
Peppy Poms in circumstance
Richard Hinds At The Hare in Bethnal Green - a cosy old-style pub in a now gentrified-ish part of East London where the notorious Kray twins once collected the rent - a regular leans across the drip tray, one eye...
Russia's capitulation raises eyebrows
Chris Dutton It could have simply been an off day but Russia’s loss to France in the women’s basketball has reignited the tanking debate after a bizarre performance in their last Olympic Games pool match.
Basketball
Opals to fight tooth and nail for gold
Chris Dutton The ''street fighter'' Australian Opals will ''scratch, bite and do whatever it takes to find a way to win'' as they prepare for the team's toughest path to an Olympic Games medal in 16 years.
Runner saga: disqualified Algerian reinstated in 1500m final
Algerian medal contender Taoufik Makhloufi cleared to run in the Olympic 1500m final after he was earlier thrown out of the Olympics for not trying hard enough in his 800m heat.
Rapper's delight: Ludacris cheers Durant and Co to crushing win
Phil Lutton Well-known American rapper Ludacris was in the crowd for the USA-Argentina match at the Olympic Basketball Arena, but he wasn't the only thing ludicrous about the show.
'I just crashed, I did it on purpose to get a restart': controversy mars GB sprint gold
Rupert Guinness At the very least, it was a bizarre thing to say, especially in light of the tanking issues raised in the badminton and basketball competitions.
In summary: miserable, with few bright spots
Chris Barrett and Phil Lutton Australia's Olympic day ended as it began, with a team hopeful of big things wondering where it all went wrong.
