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Comment by xiaq | Hacker News Reader

FWIW, Ye's story has been reported on Chinese media since at least 2007: https://web.archive.org/web/20170309082422/http://sports.soh.... Unfortunately Google Translate doesn't seem to work on wayback machine, but you can copy paste the text.

Funnily enough, at least in this particular report, it is her coach who told the story. Really shows how this behavior was normalized enough for it not to be considered too shameful to admit.

The reason Ye and her husband are persona non grata is unrelated to the Olympic incident, but because her husband is involved in the "New Federal State of China" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Federal_State_of_China). Supposedly this is what the "fierce criticism" the article is referring to.

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That's fine, but it should be fine and possible to criticize someone for their actions yet acknowledge their past sports achievements. It sounds like the Chinese media has chosen to forget their achievements.

I don't intend to criticize Ye. Her story deserves to be known regardless of whether it's been reported before or any of her possible involvement in fringe political groups.

To be clear, I'm not talking about you specifically, I'm talking about the media and online company response to her, at least that which is alledged in the article.

Chinese media is simply a state propaganda organ. You're not going to get accurate, nuanced reporting from them without a regime change.

Most media is state propaganda. Has literally always been.

Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies.

Well except for the 'masks are useless', 'WMDs in Iraq', 'Fatty foods are more harmful than sugar', etc... which had no major outlets dissenting.

  shows how this behavior was normalized enough for it not to be considered too shameful to admit

what's to be ashamed of? every sport becomes a tactical team sport at the olympics. it's nation vs nation. and any coach from any nation will try to do the same thing (success probably depends on the personality of the athlete)

The problem with that isn’t the goal but the means to achieve that goal.

Perhaps if they trained their players with a collective mentality where the greater good justifies letting go of personal success, this would make sense.

But I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Most Olympic athletes create a personal goal system, especially if competing in an individual discipline. Winning a gold medal has a profound meaning for them.

Helping their country to win a gold medal by giving up their personal chance to do it and winning a bronze medal instead has way less meaning.

So you’re not wrong, but it’s still pretty fucked up if you ask me.

> But I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Most Olympic athletes create a personal goal system, especially if competing in an individual discipline. Winning a gold medal has a profound meaning for them.

This.

Imagine a life time of having been hammered in day and night that you need to try harder to be the best and suffering is nothing when seeking eternal glory and win over everyone and achieve your full potential and this is your only shot...

...and then, when you are almost there, here comes the party official and says "wow not so fast there."

>not the case.

That's the case in PRC athletic system, especially in events PRC dominate in, where the bench is deep enough to get multiple podium placements, so roster crafting like this happens to maximize country medal count.

> personal goal system, especially if competing in an individual discipline

This is really where individual vs collective sport systems/philosophies diverge. PRC state sport development programs are more about reflecting state capacity / winning medals than individual prestige (like USSR). Young kids from backwater shitholes with little other prospects gets recruited into the athletic development pipeline and unless they're thoroughly dominant, are just one of several alternatives that can guarantee medals in events PRC specializes in. These athletes generally aren't kids of upper middle class families from developing countries with resources to largely negotiate through the amateur sport system themselves who are then apportioned commiserate glory when they win. PRC sport developement is a more all empassing national / institutional effort - it's a team effort from day one that generates enough talent in certain events that's feasible to play team order shenanigans.

Athletes don't train to make the Olympics so their nation can take home the most medals, they're there as individual competitors. The Olympics aren't really presented as some large metagame, it's about the actual athletics.

The individual athletes don't directly care about that, but in the UK the funding for the whole sport's Olympic programme is dictated by how many medals are won.

It creates some interesting problems which vary between the different types of sport. Pre-games the programme is going to be set up so that all the athletes cooperate to make each other better and maximise the programme's chance of success, but the athletes are also internally motivated to minimise their opponents' chance of beating them at the games.

In my experience there's plenty of meta-game going on all the time! (Disclaimer - I'm not an Olympic athlete myself, I'm just close to the programme socially in a particular sport).

If there were three Danes and one Chinese left in the semis, which is not impossible given that Denmark is pretty good at badminton, the Danes would not conspire in the same way. And if they did the story would not be suppressed, and people would not consider them traitors when they came out with it.

As the comment that kicked this thread off pointed out, she's considered a traitor not for talking about the badminton conspiring, but because she is signed on to an organization openly dedicated to overthrowing the Chinese government.

> the Danes would not conspire in the same way

It's perfectly normal for different teams to have different tactics, given the same inputs. Why should the Chinese have followed the hypothetical tactic chosen by the Danes?

Every aspect of this is loathsome. At simplest level its cheating because the fake match leaves the "winner" fresher than their opponent because their opponent had to actually complete in the first and subsequent match.

Then their is the need to lie about it a sure sign of moral wrong doing.

Then there is the act of subverting an individuals career and choices with ugly coercion that is only possible in the context of a society so broken that people may be disappeared, destroyed, or tortured for displeasing dear leader or his minions.

It's a many layered shit sandwich of gross that only appears bland when simple corruption doesn't have to give way to making good on threats.

You really don't know about the history of American civil rights protests in the U.S.

I thought I did, but I don't understand your comment. I remember John Carlos and Tommie Smith upsetting the USOC with their Black Power salutes on the podium in 1968, but that was after the 100 meters was done.

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