话说在国际主流媒体对国际羽联和奥委会取消四对选手比赛资格决定一片叫好声中，也有个别知名的评论家发表文章为中国和其他受影响的队员打抱不平。

重量级媒体人、学者和作家，历任《泰晤士报》和《伦敦晚旗报》总编的西蒙·詹金斯爵士（Sir Simon Jenkins）目前是《卫报》的特约专栏作家，在事件发酵后立即发表文章，公开为中国选手鼓掌助威。他的文章题目旗帜鲜明：Bravo to the Chinese badminton players – they're just trying to win medals（为中国羽毛球运动员喝彩——她们只是想赢得奖牌而已”）。

詹金斯爵士的文章指出，现代奥运本来就不是一个给普罗大众设计的表演项目，“重在参与”的时代早就过去了，而是每个有实力的国家都大量投资以期赢得更多奖牌的竞技场。对中国和韩国运动员的指责有失公允，因为她们只是想方设法去夺取奖牌。每个国家都一提到奥运就与奖牌和国家荣誉联系在一起，因此单单批评中国和韩国人有锦标主义实在虚伪。当然这样的比赛对于观众来说是令人失望的，但是谁也没逼着你看。其实，“比输”也是一种竞技，也是可以欣赏的。

资料来源：http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/01/london-2012-chinese-badminton-players-medals，英语原文如下：

The attacks on Chinese and Korean badminton players are grossly unfair. They were doing their best with added cunning. Day and after day we read relentless hyperbole about the vital importance to national pride of winning: not winning a heat or a round or an exhibition, but winning medals. So obsessed is the media with this single index that the BBC has stopped displaying the medals table because it is too humiliating. This is the pastiche chauvinism of a banana republic.

Along come the Chinese, who clearly know how to win. You plan. The badminton heats were apparently staged to give an incentive, in certain circumstances, to losing games in the qualifying stages. Faced with the risk of a tougher opponent later and thus losing a medal, the players did what their tacticians said. They lost a round. I cannot see how, in sporting terms, this is any different from sprint cyclists hovering for an age on a curve, waiting for the right moment to surge forward. Anyway, the athletes were not trying to lose, they were losing so as being more likely to win.

The result on the night may have been depressing for the spectators, but no one was forcing them to watch. They would be the first to howl if a British team so messed up the qualifying rounds as to lose a medal. The concept of the Olympics as being not about winning but "about taking part" ended long ago. Modern Olympics are parodies of Hitler's nationalist games of 1936. They are a statist contest determined by who wins the most medals.

As for watching people lose, that can develop its own rules and excitement. As a boy I recall the most engrossing event at the village sports day was the slow bicycle race. The only rule was that you had to stay on your bike and could not go backwards. Three-legged races were similarly enjoyable, as was running backwards. It was only the swimmers who elevated not moving as fast as possible from A to B into an art, with backstroke, butterfly and such nonsense.

The truth of the matter is that the actions of these badminton players are in the spirit of the modern Olympics. It is not a spectator sport but a deeply serious competition for national pride. The players should be congratulated on their ingenuity.