The ugly side of sports reared its head again with eight badminton players thrown out of the London Olympics on Wednesday.

Four doubles pairs, including China's world No 1 tandem of Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, were disqualified from the Games by the event's governing body, the BWF, for intentionally losing their final group matches in order to secure better match-ups in the knockout stage.

BWF announced it was expelling Korean pairs Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na and Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, the Indonesian duo Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii and the Chinese pair at a packed news conference at Wembley Arena.

The Chinese delegation endorsed the decision.

"The behavior of Wang and Yu violated the fair-play spirit of the Olympics and will be punished after an internal investigation," the delegation said in a statement. "The Chinese Olympic Committee has always opposed anybody, any team, any form of violation of the spirit of sports and will never stop urging its athletes to carry forward the Olympic spirit."

The specific regulations the players were charged with were "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".

Boos rained down in the 25,000-seat Wembely Arena when the players failed to exert themselves during the final pool matches on Tuesday evening. They served into the net repeatedly and sent some run-of-the-mill smashes wide.

Yu and Wang lost to Jung and Kim to remain the group runner-up and avoid an early meeting with compatriots Tian Qing and Zhao Yulei, who finished second in the opposite group.

The Koreans were thinking along the same lines.

The International Olympic Committee hailed the BWF's decision as a bold move to keep the sport healthy.

"We applaud the federation for having taken swift and decisive action," IOC communications manager Emmanuelle Moreau was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency. "Such behavior is not compatible with the Olympic values."

People in badminton circles approved as well.

"It's a good decision and the right thing to do. It sends the right signal that world badminton won't accept that kind of behavior," said Australian coach Lars Bundgaard.

Adrianti Firdasari, a women's singles shuttler from India, said such matches are unfair to fans. "As an athlete I'm very disappointed. It's not good for the sport, and people buying the tickets came to see the match but they didn't get that. It's fair for them to be disqualified."

China's top men's seed Lin Dan blamed the introduction of round-robin stages rather than a straight knockout tournament for the ugly scene.

"They might seem to be playing without regard to sportsmanship, but it's also a problem with the competition format," Lin said after thrashing Indonesian veteran Taufik Hidayat in the men's singles quarterfinals.

Hidayat echoed Lin.

"I prefer for them to be disqualified because it affects the reputation of badminton," he said. "I hope it doesn't happen again in future, as it is an embarrassment for our country.

"This kind of thing frequently happens, and the BWF has to take it really seriously. I hope this will be a lesson they can learn from."

Yu later explained they were only trying to save energy for the knockout rounds starting on Wednesday.

"We would try hard in every match if they were elimination games," she said. "Because they are the group stage, that's why we were conserving energy. If we're not playing our best it's because it doesn't matter if we're first or second (in the group) we're already through."

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn