Canada’s women’s doubles badminton team has won a chance at a medal Wednesday when a stunning disqualification of four other teams moved them into the quarter-finals.

Canada defeated Australia 21-9, 18-21 and 21-18 to move on to the semi-finals against Japan. Both teams which hadn’t finished in the top two of the round robin Tuesday night.

But eight women’s badminton players were disqualified after being charged with trying to throw their matches at the London Olympics.

The Badminton World Federation said they have disqualified four pairs who played Tuesday night in a round robin after being charged with “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport.”

The four are one of the two Chinese teams, both South Korean teams and the Indonesian team, the BWF said.

The Koreans and Indonesians appealed. Without announcing its decision on the appeal, the BWF declared on its website which teams would play the next round.

The Russian team defeated South Africa in the quarter-finals and the Japanese team won over the Danish. The Taiwan-China quarter-final game was delayed; only one of the two Chinese teams had been disqualified.

Canada had finished fourth in its round-robin match, which would have eliminated the team from the semi-finals

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Indonesian Olympic team leader Erick Thohir accused China of losing on purpose in the past.

“China has been doing this so many times and they never get sanctioned by the BWF (Badminton World Federation),” Thohir said. “On the first game yesterday when China did it, the BWF didn't do anything. If the BWF do something on the first game and they say you are disqualified, it is a warning for everyone.”

IOC Vice-President Craig Reedie, the former head of the international badminton federation, welcomed the decision.

“Sport is competitive,” Reedie told the AP. “If you lose the competitive element, then the whole thing becomes a nonsense.

“You cannot allow a player to abuse the tournament like that, and not take firm action. So good on them.”

The eight disqualified players are world doubles champions Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang of China and their South Korean opponents Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na, along with South Korea's Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, and Indonesia's Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii.

The players went before a disciplinary hearing Wednesday, a day after spectators at the arena booed their performance once it became clear they were deliberately trying to lose.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge had been at the venue but had left shortly before the drama unfolded. The IOC said it would allow badminton's ruling body to handle the matter.

Paul Deighton, chief executive officer of the London organizers, said there would be no refunds for the evening's badminton program. Chairman Sebastian Coe called what happened “depressing,” adding “who wants to sit through something like that?”

Teams blamed the introduction of a round-robin stage rather than a straight knockout tournament as the main cause of the problem. In the round-robin format, losing one game can lead to an easier matchup in the next round.

The Chinese players were accused of leading the way by deliberately losing a game. This led to other teams behaving in a similar way to try to force an easier quarter-final. At one stage, both teams appeared to be trying to lose.

Wang and Yu and their opponents were booed loudly by the crowd after dumping serves into the net and making simple errors, such as hitting the shuttlecock wide.

The longest rally in their first game was only four strokes. The umpire warned them, and tournament referee Torsten Berg spoke to all four players but it had little effect. At one stage, Berg showed a black card, which usually means disqualification, but the game continued.

Eventually, the Chinese women lost 21-14, 21-11 and both pairs were jeered off the court.

The teams had already qualified for knockout round, but the result ensured that the top-seeded Wang and Yu would have avoided playing their No. 2-seeded Chinese teammates until the final.

The problem was repeated in the next women's doubles between South Korea's Ha and Kim Min-jung and their Indonesian opponents. Both teams were also warned for deliberately losing points in a match the South Koreans won 18-21, 21-14, 21-12.

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China's Lin Dan, the No. 2-ranked men's singles player, said through an interpreter the sport is going to be damaged.

“Especially for the audience,” he said before the disqualifications were announced. “This is definitely not within the Olympic spirit. But like I said before, it's not one-sided. Whoever sets the rule should make it knockout so whoever doesn't try will just leave the Olympics.”

“If they play right, the Chinese team, this wouldn’t happen,” said South Korea head coach Sung Han-kook. “So we did the same because we don’t want to play (the other team from) Korea. Nobody likes playing against strong players.”

The South Koreans filed a protest with the referees.

“It’s not like the Olympics spirit to play like this,” Sung said. “How could the No. 1 pair in the world play like this? They start playing mistakes.”

Australia coach Lasse Bundgaard, who also lodged a protest, blamed the group format for the controversy.

“It’s not good when you create a tournament where the players are put in this situation,” he said. “If you can win a medal by losing, but not by winning, that’s not a good situation to be put in.

“I totally understand why they are doing it. Now the Indonesians are doing the same but it’s not a good situation to be put in.”

Beijing badminton silver medallist Gail Emms said the matches were embarrassing to watch.

“It was absolutely shocking,” she said. “The crowds were booing and chanting 'Off, off, off.”

The problems started when a Chinese pair lost unexpectedly to a Danish team. This meant that the top two seeded teams, both from China, would meet earlier than expected and one would eliminate the other earlier than the planned time, the final. The plan would be for China to win gold and silver but the Chinese pair needed to lose to avoid playing their fellow Chinese before the semifinal.

An official said such incidents were not rare, but had not been witnessed at such a high-profile event as the Olympics before.

“The Chinese have a habit of doing this but not at such a big event,” said the official, who remained anonymous because he did not have permission to speak publicly.

The doubles pairs were all due to compete in quarter-finals Wednesday afternoon.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency cited an unnamed spokesman for the Chinese delegation as saying the delegation was taking the incident seriously and had ordered its own investigation.

“The Chinese delegation will handle this case according to the results of the investigation into this match,” the spokesman said.

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