Scandal and sport are far from strange bedfellows, but scandal rarely rears its ugly head in the sport of badminton.

However, scandal has erupted in the women's Olympic sport after two of the event's leading teams were accused of purposely throwing a game, according to Stuff.co.nz.

China's Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang and South Korea's Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na are among the highest ranked competitors in the sport, but a recent game earned them nothing but warnings from the referees and boos from the crowd. It appeared that the two had gone out of their way to knock the shuttlecock out of bounds or directly into the net during their serves.

The match was followed by another pair of third-tier teams from Indonesia and South Korea who appeared to be pulling the same shenanigans. These poor performances have prompted the Badminton World Federation to launch an investigation.

Let's hope the investigators can get to the bottom of this. If they don't, there may come a day when athletes will be too ashamed to show the world just how good they are at handling shuttlecocks.

Photo: ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images