[bombcar]

The outcome may have been the same from the thrown match but the winner would have been tired.

It’s a decent enough trick and I’m a bit surprised that a county would compete against itself in the semifinals.

[pedrosorio]

> I’m a bit surprised that a country would compete against itself in the semifinals

What does that mean?

[anamexis]

TFA:

> In an exclusive interview with TV 2 SPORT, the Chinese champion tells the whole story for the first time about what exactly happened 22 years ago at the Sydney Olympics, when she was instructed to take a dive in the semi-final against her compatriot, Gong Zhichao.

[chihuahua]

I think the question was - what alternative was there to 2 Chinese players competing in the semi-finals, when they were the 2 that had advanced to that semi-finals match? They couldn't just say "we refuse to compete."

[pseudo0]

Per the bracket diagram in the article, out of the four players in the semi-finals, three were Chinese. So there was no way to avoid a match between two Chinese contenders. Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done in terms of tournament structure to avoid it when one nation's team is consistently strong.