Okay, so you don't know what we're talking about, right? Or you do know what we're talking about. We're doing it in Lizz Lizz, right? Right.
We're going to play an episode from Fears Back called Lizz Lizz. It's an Olympic story, which we're playing now, because the Summer Olympics are starting very soon. But before we play that episode, I have a related thing that I'm very excited to tell you about. Oh, yeah.
Going to the Olympics? I'm not going to the Olympics, but I just, I love the Olympics. I don't know if it's about me. I don't know that about you.
I really love the Olympics. And like a few years ago, I got really fixated on the medals, like why gold silver bronze? Why are there three of them? It just seems like kind of a random, like, I don't know, like, why is it this way?
And how did it become this way? I'm such a, I didn't even think to question it. I was just like, gold is more expensive than silver than bronze. Well, so this is interesting, right?
Okay, so let's first remind all the way back to the ancient Olympics, right? Let's say you win. There's one winner per event. There's not three winners.
There's one winner per event. And they get a wreath of all of, like, of all of leaves. They get like, like, all in all of French, right? No metal.
No metal. No metal. Zero metals in ancient Olympics. But like also, when you think about it, like, it's Greece.
All of trees are everywhere. Like, this is not a good present. This is the Lane prize. Like, imagine if you spend your whole life working up to the Olympics, you win the Olympics.
And they give you like, it's like, congratulations, you won water polo. Here's a pine cone. Like, like, that's what it's like, right? So we're they, they, they, they whoa, that.
And you get to wear it's a little, you know, there's a little bit of care. They did take the olive branches from special trees that were near, like, malolimpis. Like it was like, they were special olive branches, but still, like, it still feels like you're like, come on. It's imbued with meaning, but not actual value.
Right. That's right. Okay. Okay.
Okay. So now, fast forward to the modern Olympics, right? Okay. Um, 1896, right?
They're doing the modern Olympics in Athens. Yeah. The rebooting it. Mm hmm.
They decide to have medals, but listen to how they did it. Okay. First place silver medal. Oh, second place bronze medal.
Huh. Third place, nothing. You don't get anything for third place. So silver, so gold isn't even a part of the day.
It was gold too expensive then. Gold was, it felt too vulgar. Like people felt like it's, it's, if you're doing it for gold, you're doing it for money. It should be more symbolic.
Wow. Okay. It would be like, we don't need a diamond medal. That's absurd.
Yeah. That's right. Like 10 million. Like, that's right.
Okay. Okay. That's right. Huh.
And so first of all, everyone was like, okay, this Olympics, oh, this is so great. Like, this went so well. Like we rebooted this ancient thing. Yeah.
And they're like, okay, great. Let's do it again in four years. And everyone just assumed that it would be in Athens. Okay.
But then the guy who was sort of in charge of it, uh, Pierre de Cooper, he was like, no, let's do it in Paris. And everyone's like, why would we do it in Paris? Right. Um, and then there was kind of a big fight.
So. Yeah. And then the other reason is one of, if not the worst Olympics in history, it was a disaster of an Olympics. It was notoriously mismanaged.
It was like just chaos. So, but one of the things they did, because it was so poorly planned was they were like, okay, you know what? Uh, we don't know about the medals or whatever. Like every sport just fend for yourselves.
Like figure out what your own prizes are. And so, so you just read the list of like what people won that year. Oh, wow. And there was a lot of in general, there was a lot of like porcelain.
There was just like a lot of like paintings and really tacky art. One Australian runner. Yeah. One, several prizes.
These are the prizes, a small clock, a ladies purse and a silver letter opener. This one guy, he was an American pull vaulter and his prize was an umbrella. Oh, man, that's so sad. You just pick him like walking away into the sunset with his little umbrella.
Wow. Okay. So that's one of my favorite Olympics stories. And then actually the next year, 1904 was also chaos, but at least by that time they had figured out, they'd sort of standardize the medals as we know them today.
Okay. So by then it's gold silver bronze. Then it was gold silver bronze. And my feeling was like, it was like, by then like it was like after all the tacky art and stuff, they were like, okay, like gold doesn't seem so.
More, more, more, more paraply. Okay. So that was a story from an Olympics in Paris 124 years ago. But now the Olympics is, you know, is a well-oiled machine to the degree that, you know, there's, there's very little chaos.
It's all very, very, very perfectly planned in advance. But there was one recent Olympics where a bit of chaos did emerge. And that little bit of chaos, it felt like a sort of a glitch in the matrix that made you, made all of us, made the whole world kind of ask like, wait a second, what are we doing here again? And what is the point of sport?
What is fair? What is within the rules? And what are you actually allowed to do in the service of winning? Yeah.
And it's a great story. You, you reported it. This is a rerun from a while back. Do we just kick it over, bounce it over, hit it, swat it over to, uh, to the, to you and the old man of the art, Robert Kowich.
Let's serve it up. Okay. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, you're listening to radio lab from WNYC.
Hi, I'm Robert Kowich. And I'm what this, Nasser. This is radio lab and today we're going to do something completely upside down. And inside out.
Yes. It's, it's a sports story. Sort of, but like none you've ever heard. And therefore we found a reporter who is a sports reporter like none you've ever heard.
Yeah. I've been to a gym lately. Mike Pesca, he's the host of the Jist podcast formerly of NPR. And now he's here telling the story to us.
Yeah. And how did you even first hear about this? Were you covering it? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So this is Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm her name on tape. I was covering the 2012 Olympics for NPR.
Morning. Hello. And I'd clear open the games of London. The stories of the Olympics, you try to find your own stories that are obscure.
But if there's a big story, you chase it. So in those Olympics, so for you, what were the most notable achievements in the first week of the Games? Well, it is to be the best time. Microsoft's breaking the old time record, obviously.
So in over 100 years, nobody's won as many medals with the Olympic Games. And everyone knew that. Oh, no way. And he comes here, said both.
And his record setting quest in 100 would be huge. Oh, he's returning his title in the most emphatic way. Brilliant, brilliant. But then this bad minting story pops up.
And everyone rushes to figure out what the heck's going on with bad minting. Because the 2012 London Olympics badminton tournament, just it took this somewhat obscure sport and it morphed it into this bizarre ethics vermate about competition and integrity and what it means to win. OK, but mostly I think that although to be fair, Mike, he jumped on the story for very personal reasons. As a New Yorker, I say a lot of words and they're mispronounced in the NPR audience would jump on them, but I always can say the end in bad minting and get a lot of plot.
It's so I'm attracted to bad minting. What's the wrong way to say bad minting? Most people say bad minting. Bad minting.
Like you're talking to some hand where wintertime. It looks like you're chastising a playful cat. Right. Bad minting.
I see. And then also, you know, you and I probably think of badminton as this backyard fun, silly game, but according to Mike, no, this is anything fun. It has nothing to do with the bad minting. You play in your backyard.
It's much faster than you think it would possibly look. You get these players flying in all over the court stretching, reaching, diving. The scale of the competitors is, you know, readily apparent. This is all-sating badminton.
A shuttlecock is a funny thing and perhaps not as impressive a thing as a tennis ball, but it looks, you know, a lot like tennis and there's a lot of tension. So they are fresher. And there's a lot of guanting and it totally seems like every bit of a legitimate and highly skilled sport. Wait, I'm going to start.
OK, so Robert, so you haven't seen this yet, but I would like to show you something. OK, this is an ad. Yeah, this. OK, this is the game that is at the center of this whole story.
I mean, doubles group. I women's doubles badminton. It is not a metal round. It's in the group play stage.
There's a huge crowd here like the places packed. Yeah. We welcome representatives from public of China. One, shall we?
And you can. So these two teams come out. You got China, yellow, when you're reading from the ocean. So here come versus Korea.
Purple and white. Yeah. And let's just ask the head here. All right, so here we go.
Game on is the first serve. Korean serve. So the Korean player flicks her wrist. The shell goes over the net.
China returns. Mm, right into the net. That was it. That was the whole thing.
That was just it. All right. So Korea second serve and Chinese return. And same thing.
Not again. Yeah. So the service is turned over. Now the Chinese are serving China, Korea, China.
And American. Yeah, this is not exactly scintillating. I was going to tell you. OK, well, well, just watch this next point.
So the Korean player serves it. Yeah. It sails over the net. And then it goes, goes, goes, goes.
And the Chinese player clearly is right there. She has it. She then winds up just a slight bit. Like you could see it's like she has this deep and grain muscle memory from years of doing this.
She winds up. She's about to hit it. And then she stops. And the shell cock just clunks onto the floor, in bounds, point to Korea.
And then, telling Lee, she looks back at the back corner of the court where her coaches sitting. They both are. Yeah. This is a fix.
They're fixing this. Like this is. Yes, but there have been plenty of occasions where one side wants to lose. And it ain't hard to lose.
And the more important thing is it ain't hard to get away with it. Usually you wouldn't even notice it. You know, it's the difference between a couple serves over the line, a couple balls into the net. But in this case, as the match goes on, you start to realize that Korean players seem to be trying to lose too.
That's perfect. False. Yes. It's a value of course.
But everybody will be trying to lose. Well, it's actually a strategy. Because the way the tournament is laid out, both these teams are going to be moving on to the metal rounds. But whoever wins this game is going to have to play another Chinese team, a really strong team.
I see. And whoever loses is going to play a way easier Danish team. So both teams are hoping to lose. Yeah.
And it is the rare instance where you have both sides incentivized to lose that you get something that should be scored by Spike Joe's. It's a little bit of a prisoner's dilemma, right? Either side could lose, but when both want to lose. It becomes this surreal waiting game.
Right. You know, who's going to crack first and score a point? And so you've got the best players in the world who just start hitting the shuttle car out of bounds. They're surfing, fault after fault.
Faulting on purpose and just getting the ball straight into the net. Hitting the shuttle cock into the net. I'm sorry. You know, it's blinding the obvious what's going on.
And you know, they're both trying to lose. Sometimes they hit it below the net. And that is unforgivable. They're hitting straight into the ground.
All but tripping over their own shoelaces purposefully. And so what you get is serve up all into the net. Point for after point of just terrible badminton. And it just devolves into this absurd, repetitive, crazy making, lose a thong.
This is not something that's most so obviously lame. I mean, this is not this is not sport. This is kind of a sport. Because and this is why I really love it.
At a certain point, these two teams have to start competing with each other to lose. What? Let me play you this point. So China serves it.
Korea hits it back, but it's going way out of bounds. Now, in a normal world, China would obviously let that fall so that they could take a point. But they lunge to save it. And they're hitting it back.
Now, Korea then, they are like, no, no, no, no. We're pretty sure we want it out of bounds. They hit it in the opposite direction, even further out of bounds. So now China goes to save it once again.
But they don't get there in time. So the point goes to China, which China actually didn't want. And the Koreans wanted the whole time. So what are you saying then?
Well, it's like they invented a whole new sport, which is the exact opposite of badminton. It is photo negative badminton. But then, towards the end of the first set. Can the referee have been playing four?
Out comes the referee. Can he come and push the word? Hello, Toreston speaking. Hi, how are you?
Toreston Bear was the head Olympic badminton referee who got that call. And I also heard this big potato spoo, so I went to watch. It looked pretty awful. This was not right.
I mean, referee is fooling the players together. And I told them that they were not playing seriously. And they were making a very serious mistake. And they played stupid and said, no, we're playing.
We're trying our best. We were actually able to get in touch with three of the four players in that match, both Korean players, and also one of the Chinese players. And Wang Xiaoli told me they were trying to lose in that match. But what we didn't expect to South Korea would do the same thing.
And as for the Koreans, Jun Kyung Un said that they too were trying to lose, at least during certain moments in the game. But when the crowd started to boo. And the ref came out. Her partner, Kim Hana, said that.
I was surprised and embarrassed. They were just scared. We just wanted to get out of the court as soon as possible. So, Torsten walks off the court.
They went on court again. And then the second serve after Torsten walks off the court. Nothing but net. So for the next few points, it does not get much better.
No. It didn't look like World Class B. So the tour. So the set comes to an end.
Korea wins the set. And while the players are waiting on the sidelines. He comes to the tournament referee again. Torsten comes back onto the court.
He walks up to the players and pulls out of his pocket. Almost subtly and shows to the players this black card. The black card, which means disqualification. This is absolutely extraordinary.
He has given both teams a black card. Or has he threatened them with a black card? I'm really not terribly sure. Those players have returned to court.
It was now that they should play or they would be in deep. Sorry, maybe I should. The black card? The black card?
The black card was out. And I told them in very clear words. And very seriously, that in order to help themselves, they better play now. Can you play?
The Korean player, Jun Kyung-un. Jun Kyung-un Kyung-un Kyung-un Kyung-un Kyung-un Kyung-un Said that she turned to her partner. And I told her, they're them and we are we. So can you hit two.
Let's just play and do our best. The second set starts and pretty quick. You may have to push the tapangu-latin gomara. Oh, you China's Wang Xiaolie told me.
Shushua Yisie. Both sides changed a little bit. They're just serving into the net. Things start to get better.
I'm running. They would get the rally going. But then as the points kept coming, you started to notice like... They were playing very slowly.
The system is still really off here. They were not hitting the ball very hard. Fushua Haile-man. Oh, just as well.
Now, the Korean team wouldn't admit this. But Wang Xiaolie said that both teams... Didn't change the basic fact. ...guyghen-hindor.
We're still trying to lose. Which I have to say is exactly what it looks like when you watch it. Because for the rest of the match, you get a bunch of these points where like... where just the lob it's super high.
You know, as if to say, hey, smash it down on us, take your point. Or they will, you know, hit it out of bounds and then face palm. Just, you know, practice their swing after they missed one. Just to say, oh, you know, my mechanics are off.
I just got to just practice this a few more times. Because it's like we've entered a whole third iteration of this game where it's like they're not just trying to lose. They're trying to... Cover up that.
Cover up that. You're trying to lose, but you're trying to look like you're trying to win. I don't think you're feeling anybody here. No.
So finally, after 20 long minutes of this, the Korean team loses the match by winning it. Tonight has left me with a very nasty taste in the mouth. Tonight was not forward. It was a disgrace.
Tonight. So all four players walked off the court and Kim Hana told him... It was not a pleasant winning at all. ...that her parents were in the audience that day.
And afterwards they asked her, what happened? What happened? Then why do you actually get the booze from the audiences and et cetera? And I was, I was set in the field, felt in the field.
So I didn't even want to talk to my mom. So I remember I was just going to the hotel and had rest. So I was shut down, killed, you know. And the next morning at 8 o'clock, all four pairs, in fact, were disqualified.
According to the disciplinary regulations of the badminton world federation. Which has a rule on the books that you can be disqualified for failing to use your best efforts. And the same evening they were on the playing home. They were just thrown out of the Olympics.
A scandal at the Olympics. Can you bring him to the show? This whole to do about the badminton players. Everyone was talking about some losers.
It's a couple of times ago now. To beat up being the shuttle-coking to the net. Like a five-year-old in the backyard picnic. It was down like humiliating.
It was just sad that they were committing suicide in that tournament. Can you tell me that you're going to be... At that time, the punishment hit me quite hard. I was very sad and I felt helpless.
I was perplexed and didn't know what happened. We just cried. This doesn't sound like it's getting any better. No, but there's still more after the break.
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We're back. I'm Robert Crowich. And I'm Lataf Nasser. This is Radio Web.
And when we left off that Korean and Chinese women's badminton teams had just been disqualified, kicked out of the Olympics. So then what happened to the... Where the players were like, what happened to them? Well, all four of them did keep playing badminton professionally after this.
Junk-Young Earn from Korea even went on to win the bronze in Rio. But at the time, this was a brutal punishment for all of them. Well, but you know, they did something wrong. This wasn't right.
Right? You know, I don't even... I question whether it's even unethical. I think it's ethical in a way what they did.
Really what the players did. I do. I think it's ethical. How so?
Okay. So is the definition of ethics in sports to win? Sure. Without cheating.
Yes. Does that mean to win every point? No, not necessarily. You know, in baseball, there's the thing called the intentional wall.
Sure. In football, a team will take a safety instead of punting and letting the other teams score a touchdown. So this is a calculation where a point here or there is not as important as the whole and the whole is the game. So, okay, let's move back.
Let's pan out a little more. I think an individual game is often lost. Look, we're not going to put our good starter here. We're going to manage the lineup because the goal is to win the championship.
And the thing to remember about these players is if what we want is players who are hyper-competitive, who actually want to win at all costs, that's exactly why they were losing so badly because they wanted to win the overall championship at all costs. And the badminton Federation had a set of rules that all but guaranteed that this would happen. Well, yeah. I mean, it's stupid to have an event where people are trying to lose.
Yeah, the bad event is a sporting event, especially at the apex of the only time people care about badminton. It seems really... So this is Chuck Klosterman. We called him in because he writes a lot about sports and also because he wrote the ethicist column for the New York Times Magazine.
Now, is this a... some kind of tragedy? Well, it's not. I guess in less badminton's really important to you than it probably is.
Well, in this case, I think the thing that people got really upset about is this idea of the Olympic ideal... In the name of all the competitors, I promise that we shall take part in the Olympic Games. The athletes both... In the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of the sport and the honor of our teams.
To transcend in a way that as a superb athlete you're transcending your humanity, but then also as this representative of your country. I think it did poke a lot of people. Like a lot of people did seemingly get upset about it. Well, yeah.
I mean, for some reason it's disturbing to see athletes failing on purpose. It seems to kind of like tap into some... It goes immoral somehow. It's not because of the very nasty taste of it.
Yes, like I don't know if not trying in a sporting event is a moral question, but it feels that way when you see it happen. That is unforgivable. Here again, one interesting thing about sports is that we watch these adults playing multi-million dollar games, but they're the same games that a six-year-old or seven-year-old plays. So when you have a seven-year-old kid, you would say, it doesn't matter if you win or lose, it doesn't matter what happens.
Just play hard. You don't have to succeed. It's the trying that matters. So when you see people at the highest level not trying, it's sort of rex the entire idea of why we play sports at all.
You know, why if you're at a playground and two kids race across the playground to see who can get to the swing faster or whatever? Like that's like a biological thing. Maybe we're biologically driven to compete. So that's the baseline expectation of what we have of these bad-men players that they will try to compete.
But it seems to me there's an opportunity here for true athleticism in a kind of top-seater view. Flip it and reverse it and see if you can do that as well as you do the other way. I mean, sports only work one way though. They don't work both ways.
I mean, it would be like going to your wife and saying like, okay, you say you really love me, prove it by hating me in a creative way. Or go to a great piano player and say like, if you're so awesome at playing piano, bang your fist against the keys in a way that I will be sickened by. But if we take it out of the matters of the heart and put it back on the field, what would be the most radical solution that you could imagine if your desire was to convincingly and astonishingly, athletically lose the world? I suppose if they were both trying to do it in the most convincing way, it would be.
That was not really the case here. I guess they never confronted it. How do you lose on purpose if the other side's also trying to lose on purpose? And I'm trying to think there are some sports.
So in football, let's say in American football, let's say both sides wanted to lose. Well, here's how the sport would go. You can't make the other team score, but you can score safety on yourself. So the quarterback would get the ball and start running towards his own end zone.
And then there'd be a jailbreak by the defense to tackle the quarterback before he got the over. They spoke hard. They could hit the batter. That would be an interesting game.
You have darts instead of aiming at the dartboard just turning around and aiming at your opponent. That's like the baseball strategy. How about sport of bodybuilding? Think about the implications of moving with the worst.
I would win that. I would win that. I would win that. I see like a Will Ferrell movie out of this.
Yes, that's what I was thinking. The loser. We get to a point our team. All right.
This is what we need. You got to go out there and lose. Then there's a loser on the other team. It's also very heavy.
Shoot these two. I'm going to have it down and lose. Yeah. You can hear more of Mike Peska on his podcast, the gist more of Chuck Costerman in his latest book.
What if we're wrong? Big thanks to all the players who talked to us and to those who helped us get those interviews. Joy Lele, Mikim Kim, Yoonikartika. Thanks to Pernan and Charla who came in and helped us puzzle this whole match out.
And in addition, a special thanks to Gracia Polly. Gracia was on the Indonesian badminton team in those same Olympics. And an hour after the match we featured, she faced off against a different Korean team. All four players in that match were also disqualified for not using their best efforts to win.
She really helped us understand what it was like to be in that situation. This story was produced by Matt Keilty and Annie McKeown and Latif Nasser. I remember Colwich. And I'm Latif Nasser.
And I guess that ends the game at this point. Hi, I'm Rhianne and I'm from Deni Goden Island. I'm here at the Stock Credits. Radio Lab is created by Jad, Abum Rad and is edited by Soreen Nieder.
Luru Miller and Latif Nasser are a co-host. Drinkeef is our director of Sign Design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bresler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gabel, Maria Paz-Kuterres, Cindy Nann Asamadam, Matt Keilty, Annie McKeown, Alex Neeson, Sarah McCarrie, Salmy Kari, Valentina Powers, Sarah Sambak, Ariane Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster.
Our fact checkers are Dan Kelly and Nick Reager and Matthew Middleton. Here's an idea I have. There's an old riddle that goes like this. A king talks to his two sons, two princes, and he says, here's what we're going to do.
Get those horses out of the stable. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to jump on your horses and ride to the city gate. Whichever horse gets the city gate, last, you're going to inherit the fortune.
Maybe it's a crazy king. So the two princes look at each other. They both think and then they jump on the horses and they ride fast as they can. Why?
To, to reen in their worship. They jump off the horses and say, whoa, and then wait until the other one. I don't know. Are they, are they planning on just, just, just removing a section of the gate and then just smashing it up against the other horse?
Yeah, no. That's terrible. No, okay. Like the answer.
What is the answer? They jumped on each other's horse. They drummed on the other brother's horse. Maybe.
Let me just think about that. I know it's funny. That's great. I know it's funny.
That's great. I know it's funny. I know it's funny. Of course.
He said whichever horse gets the last. Hi, this is Tamara from Pasadena, California. Leadership Support for Radio Lab Science Programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Finance Foundation initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational Support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P.
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