Tactics and strategy are part of sport. In any tournament the objective is not to win an individual match but to win the tournament. Winning the tournament should mean you have to win the individual matches, but if it is designed in such a way that it is better to lose some then there is a flaw in the way the tournament is organised.

It seems to be entirely accepted in some sports that tactics will be used. To take just one example, in the cycle road race the GB team were quite up-front about the fact that they were working to give Cav the best chance of winning (and the other teams were working to prevent it), rather than giving their best efforts to win as individuals.

Of course the badminton was particularly blatant, and particularly unsatisfactory to the audience (but again, the point is not to entertain an audience but to win a tournament), but it seems to me to unsurprising in the circumstances. The question is why should a competitor be put in a position where it would be to their disadvantage to win their match?