Controversial women's badminton duo honored

BEIJING - Chinese women's badminton duo Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli were awarded the sports honor medals by China' s sports governing body though the pair being kicked out of the London Olympics for playing to lose.

Chinese shuttlers Yu Yang (left) and Wang Xiaoli talk at the end of their women's doubles badminton match against Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na of South Korea. Andres Leighton / Associated Press

According to the name list published by the China's General Administration of Sports here on Friday, Yu and Wang are among the 100 players, and Chinese badminton head coach Li Yongbo is among the 104 coaches who win this annual awards for Chinese world champions.

Yu and Wang were involved in one of the Olympics' dark moments when they were among eight players angrily booed and then disqualified for trying to lose round-robin matches in order to secure a more favourable draw in the knock-out stage.

The pair's match-fixing scandal in London made their inclusion of the annual awards into doubt, but China' s sports official emphasized that the sports honor medals were established for Chinese world champions - winners of Olympics, World Championships, World Cup in the year - and their coaches.

Yu and Wang helped China regain the Uber Cup in May, 2012, meaning that the pair won the annual awards as world champions.

In the annual awards, Chinese badminton is the biggest winner as 14 players and 21 coaches are included.

In the year of 2012, the Chinese badminton team won both Thomas & Uber Cups and made a clean sweep of Olympic gold medals for the first time.