Bad Mitten's

Can you believe it? Badminton is an Olympic Sport! Much like the Winter Olympics' "Curling" competition, viewers of the games over the years wonder out loud WTF? regarding both sports. However, "Curling" has never experienced The Grand Shame of what went down yesterday in London as members of the Chinese Badminton Doubles Team appeared to deliberately lose set after set in an attempt to procure a more favorable position for future Olympic matches wherein they would shockingly become aces and slip away with a medal or two having been paired with inferior players.

Before I go on, allow me to tell you how I read yesterday's  "Chinese Players Disqualified For Throwing Matches" headlines. Throwing matches, I asked? Why would they be carrying matches and why would they be throwing them during a game? It was confusing. Were they trying to sabotage the other side of the net with little sticks of matches? How strange.

Yes, I really did think that way. After all, the very idea of even one Chinese Olympian not playing nice was far from my mind. Aren't they very, very controlled by their coaches, who are, in turn, extremely indebted to their country for Sport Support? And aren't the Chinese a Proud Group who work hard and do their best so that they'll live to see another day?

When I finally grasped that it was a literal "match" - as in a game - and then realized the game was Badminton, well, you could have knocked me to the ground with one of those plastic feathered objects they hit over a simple net on a teeny tiny little court with cute little racquet's which makes one think of what it would be like if a Tennis Racquet met a Ping-Pong Paddle in the back alley of a Flyswatter Reject pile and had a lusty game of Night Ping With Tight Strings Attached.

Good grief! Where have I been, I wondered? #1 - Badminton at the Olympics? Hahahaha! #2 -  deliberately losing matches in that "sport"? #3 - The Chinese? Oh my! The world has indeed gone mad. Now it is worse, as Yu Yang, one of the eight disqualified players, has decided to quit the game completely! (See This If You Care)

Such drama over a "game" I once played as a child and have never viewed as a genuine "sport" – until now, although I can't say the above with a straight face for some reason. Obviously I am having difficulty accepting Badminton as an Olympic-Class Sport Contender.

Those Chinese kids should have kept their mitts firmly on their racquets instead of playing all loose and free-throw. I am certain that it's a temptation to revel in a non-Communist country where the Olympic Village is full of carefree consensual pillage of the carnal and fast-food kind, but to throw matches to eventually have an edge is quite unsportsmanlike.

Such behavior is only allowed for politicians like Mitt Romney who is, in a sense, almost tossing his Presidential Match with constant gaffes and a suspicious refusal to show more than a few years' worth of tax returns. He is playing to win by dropping the ball on most media interviews, pretending to be compliant while, in fact, he is defiant and thus far a liar when he tells everyone he'll make sure his people will "look into that" – whatever "that" might be when questioned on anything at all regarding his finances. Somehow the trail goes cold after he flatly deflects another simple volley over the net of obscuration.

Bad, bad, Mittens! You're using devious tactics to win your Gold Medal. You should know better. And perhaps you do, which is why I'm writing a post that combines the Badminton scandal with you! Neither the game is interesting enough for the Olympics, in my opinion, nor are you qualified to run for an office that requires Sportsmanlike conduct with allies, and an ability to give anyone a cogent sense of who you really are, what you honestly stand for, and precisely how you'll turn the U.S. economy around.

At least Yu Yang had the bravery to walk away from what she knows was a shameful act.

Image via: Santa Monica College website