Canadians benefit from match-fixing scandal

Two Canadian athletes emerged as the unlikely beneficiaries of a match-fixing scandal that shook their sport on Wednesday, when eight female badminton players were expelled from the London Olympics for deliberately trying to lose their matches.

Alex Bruce and Michele Li received a second life in the doubles tournament when news broke that four pairs had been disqualified, because two of the offending teams had been in their group.

The Canadians were suddenly in the quarter-finals, and they took advantage.

Bruce and Li beat Australians Leanne Choo and Renuga Veeran in three sets (21-9, 18-21, 21-18) to advance to a surprise semifinal appearance against Japan on Thursday.

“We had been waiting in the hotel, trying to relax, but the call didn’t come till 3:30 for a match at 5 p.m.,” Bruce told reporters.

Canadian coach Ram Nayyar said he received a phone call earlier in the day warning him the team could be reinstated.

“I didn’t tell the girls, I just made sure to keep them some place where I knew where they were,” he told reporters. “At 1 p.m., I asked them to meet me as the possibility of play had increased. I said ‘how would you like to play tonight?’ And at 4 p.m., I was telling them to pack their bags.”

Their win unfolded as their sport wilted under an unexpected Olympic spotlight.

The controversy swirled strongest around China, South Korea and Indonesia after players made a series of odd and unusually poor plays on Tuesday, the final day of round-robin action.

The Badminton World Federation ruled what was obvious to the eye: that the teams were trying to lose to manipulate their position in the knockout phase.

China’s Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, the reigning world doubles champions, were found to have been purposely trying to lose their match against South Korea’s Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na to avoid playing another Chinese team before the championship final.