It appears that much of what happens in life is not a simple as it seems. As has been already pointed out here there is precedent for doing less than one's best in sport and in the Olympics specifically.

"As The Times recently reported, very similar behavior by the Japanese women's soccer team was met with shrugs. The players were told by their coach not to score in their game Tuesday against South Africa, because a loss or tie would give them a more winnable matchup in the next round. It's impossible to know how often such strategizing occurs in sports such as soccer, basketball and volleyball that employ round-robin tournaments, but we suspect it has happened many times before (although games are seldom tossed as flagrantly as the ejected badminton players from China, South Korea and Indonesia tossed theirs)."

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