The most paradoxical and upside down badminton match of all time: At the 2012 London Olympics, women’s badminton doubles teams from China and Korea wanted to avoid playing the world champions in the knockout stages. So in the last match of their group stages, both guaranteed to progress, the teams played and competed to lose, putting on show quite possibly the worst badminton match ever. Radiolab’s producers discussed the ethics of what the teams did, raising a number of questions. They asked if the definition of ethics in sport “to win”? Yes, we can all agree to that, but does mean winning every point possible? No, not necessarily, one could argue, as teams even drop individual matches in attempt to win tournaments. This leaves us with a moral dilemma: if we want hyper-competitive players who want to win it at all cost, then that is what we got exactly with the 2012 badminton match, they were playing in a way that gave them the best chance to win the overall championship.

You can watch the games “highlights” here (runtime 05:03). And for the record: Both teams were disqualified from the 2012 Olympics (runtime 26:25).