Chinese table tennis is full of such cases. This is their national sport, this is were they dominate.

Many Chinese players fall out with their brutal system. Either they barge and do nothing, like Liu Shiwen in the last decade, who was the very best player, but had some terrible losses to non-chinese players. Thus she was not allowed to play Olympics as World No #1. The most upsetting thing is that she lost to Ex-Chinese players, who left the system and played for Korea or Singapore. Some even for European countries, but only one ex-Top 10 player.

He Zhili played for Japan, Harimoto Tomukazu's parents also left the Chinese system at very young age and played for Japan. Last Olympics were extremely stressful for China because of this Ex-Chinese player who won against the very best, effectively unbeatable Chinese superstars, with new techniques. Then the Chinese looked very vulnerable because several European players also took that up and beat the GOAT Ma Long in a series of losses. Some 2nd rank Bejing politician took his chances and fired the coaches, the 3 best players defended their coaches and wanted to protect their superior system from some amateur destroying everything for his political chances. So the whole team was recalled from the ongoing World Championships, and didn't play for the next years. (Ma Long also had a knee injury). A new young Chinese protege didn't turn out to be winner against Harimoto, so after 3 years the old trainer at least in the men's team was allowed to come back, the old players won again, and China won almost all gold medals. They just lost one, even if they developed a secret win strategy against their biggest opponent, a young Japanese, and surprised them in the finals, but Liu Shiwen's partner fell off, and they lost Mixed Doubles. So Liu Shiwen is now forever dirty, not winning any Olympics gold. But she stayed in the system, and still is best paid player worldwide. She will probably retire this year.

However, no Ex-Chinese player ever won a gold medal against them. This would be their worst upset, it might even trigger a downfall of the political system.

Some addition to your comment. The players that join Singapore is to get chances to compete Internationally. China has too many good table tennis players. Even their second and third-rate national players are still considered top International players.

A downfall of their political system? This is a joke, right? They can't be that fragile.

Not a joke. The politician are not their national heros. And if a vice-major of Bejing is able to blow up the Chinese dominance in their most favorite sport caused by incompetence and for his pure selfish political advances, major disruptions could have been expected.

I'm curious why would they have an interest in a particular player ever getting a grand slam?

I guess it's simply an honor to have, and if you (the country) are going to win anyway, why not?

Keep in mind it's not any "particular" individual, everyone take turns. So if you're "close", you have the priority. If you already have one? Well you can try to not push so hard.

And it's not like it happens all the time, just in a few cases. It's still largely merit-based especially for things like Olympics trial, you have to earn it no matter who you are.

It's a regular thing in other sports, as well. The number of times it has caused controversy in Formula-One, with a safety driver told to lose, is probably not even worth counting. (Everyone does it, but they're not supposed to).

It has something to do with prestige and respect, often enforced by the team owner. Lewis Hamilton made his first huge win by ignoring such an instruction.

> with a safety driver told to lose,

Not only told to loose. I think in at least one case someone was told to crash, completely blocking the raceway on an already narrow curve. I wouldn't be surprised if that where common even as in some sports one bad racer can take out half the competition.

Since you're getting downvoted, citation provided [0]. This was a huge deal in F1.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Formula_One_crash_cont...

Sorry but having watched every race and attended 11 in the last decade+, I know not only that the event you are imagining didn't happen in the modern era, it simply would not happen to any team during any season.

The penalties for rebuilding a car are reason enough. Being able to hide a coded message for "crash the car" would mean it needs to be discussed before the race began. If the driver followed the command it would be at the risk of HIS superlicense, his entire livelihood, not just some race points for some team he's with for one season.

On the face you've offered an unsubstantiated and impossible enigma for another reader to "solve"

If it weren't for extensive F1 knowledge I might even have been confused by your obvious mistaken recollection or troll.

> Sorry but having watched every race and attended 11 in the last decade+, I know not only that the event you are imagining didn't happen in the modern era, it simply would not happen to any team during any season.

That would be the crash in 2008, to the advantage of Fernando. Renault did not contest the charges. In the words of Nelson Piquet Jr.:

> During the Formula One Grand Prix of Singapore, held on 28 September 2008 and counting towards the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship, I was asked by Mr. Flavio Briatore, who is both my manager and the Team Principal of the Renault F1 Team, and by Mr Pat Symonds, the Technical Director of the ING Renault F1 Team, to deliberately crash my car in order to positively influence the performance of the ING Renault F1 team at the event in question. I agreed to this proposal and caused my car to hit a wall and crash during lap thirteen/fourteen of the race.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20091001201052/http://www.f1sa.c...

I guess you must have missed the race then. Just because you aren’t aware of something doesn’t make it untrue.

> having watched every race and attended 11 in the last decade+

I'm going to guess that "decade+" maxes out at 14 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Singapore_Grand_Prix

> Lewis Hamilton made his first huge win by ignoring such an instruction.

Excuse me, what exactly are you referring to? His first GP win was just a regular race without any controversy, and his first championship win was... not impressive, to say it mildly. He did everything to lose and was only saved by Timo Glock slipping on the last lap.

It is also known that Hamilton was always favoured by the team owners and often benefitted from team orders throughout his career.

I’m not sure what you mean by safety driver, but F1 is explicitly a team sport, and team orders are a part of the sport rather than a form of cheating. As much as the fans like to complain about it, there’s only really a few controversial cases that stand out in peoples memories, like the multi 21 race (which ultimately had 0 impact on the championship).

Yeah, yeah, team sport, and then Alonso who leads everyone by a lap just randomly slows down in the last two laps to let Schumacher win [1]

[1] It was quite some time ago, but I'm still pissed

That's one of the few F1 races I remember. (it wasn't Alonso, though, it was Barrichello). That was dramatic. If I remember correctly, Schumacher gave the trophy to Barrichello at the podium as a gesture to show that he was the one who deserved it and Barrichello couldn't hold back the tears.

Yeah. They shared the podium and F1 fined them for doing that because they couldn't do anything else.

Alonso?! Maybe you mean Barrichello?

Maybe? It was loooong ago :)

Haha. Alonso would never play second fiddle.

I think they meant "second" driver. Clearly an autocorrect or brainfart.

We know it's a team sport but the star of the show is usually just one guy. Even though they often praise the team and everyone back in the factory, the glory is always directed at the drivers. And in most cases, one particular driver. The star.

Clearly the second drivers have to deal with a lot of shit... that is specified in their contracts

> ... team orders are a part of the sport rather than a form of cheating. As much as the fans like to complain about it, there’s only really a few controversial cases...

Actually, if a team order changes a ranking, and it can be proved, then the team is automatically issued a fine. Just because the team orders happen, does not actually mean that they're _allowed_ to happen. The fines are generally in the order of $100k-$250k.

Team orders have been banned in F1 since 2008 [0]:

> 152. Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited.

There's a reason that Smedley's quote is infamous:

> Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand that message?

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20081206120227/https://paddockta...

> Team orders have been banned in F1 since 2008 [0]:

This statement is misleading, as it gives the appearance that this ban is still in effect. However, the ban was repealed at the end of 2010 season. [0]

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_orders

>> Team orders have been banned in F1 since 2008 [0]:

> This statement is misleading, as it gives the appearance that this ban is still in effect.

Not quite. The statement is false, because it states outright that the ban is still in effect.

> The fines are generally in the order of $100k-$250k.

Seems like the budget for a F1 team is around 140 million Euro/year. Not sure these fines make anybody feel uncomfortable.

That ban on team orders was repealed very soon after it was implemented. F1 is currently, and has been for nearly its entire history, a team sport, where team orders are allowed.

Team orders were banned in 2002 but it was lifted in 2011.

That's one sure way to show literally everybody how it stopped being a sport, and just became politics and ego game of few fuckers who run it behind the curtains.

One hell of a way to disgust millions of people immediately, and as you can see here and elsewhere, they will easily hold the grudge for decades. Its just a plain idiotic move to be polite. Nobody is cheering for ie team Williams, everybody is cheering for their favorite driver.

Your attempt to normalize it is so surreal. Do you also like other, proper team sports like football or hockey for all the behind the scenes politics, or actually for the sport itself?

Teamwork happens every race, and it’s very rarely controversial at all. Teammates towing each other in qualifying is teamwork. Teammates holding up rivals for each other is teamwork. Sergio Perez’s entire Abu Dhabi race last year was team work, and hardly anybody considers any of that to be controversial at all. Even most orders to give up position aren’t controversial, because most of them are drivers on split strategies being ordered not to hold the faster driver up.

F1 is just fundamentally a team sport, and hardly any of the teamwork generates any level of controversy at all. Even the (very uncommon) controversial cases of a driver being ordered to give up a race win are only a big deal to a certain segment of fans. Typically the deluded ones who think Bottas was better than Hamilton, or Webber was better than Vettel, or Barrichello was better than Schumi, and that all of those drivers would have championships if it weren’t for team orders.

Are you getting Hamilton mixed up with Vettel?

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/analysis-why-did-vettel-i...

That was far from Vettel's first win either (he'd won 3 championships at that point).

To create a national superhero.

> I'm curious why would they have an interest in a particular player ever getting a grand slam?

I'm sure that it's for the same reason football teams have their top scorer take their team's penalty kicks.

Speculating - maybe they thought the other player had better chances of winning?

Correct but it also increases the chance of a win by preventing the player from exhausting themselves in round 1 leaving them fresher for round 2 so one could see it as not much different than doping or any other form of cheating. An unfair advantage conferred by corruption.