The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that four(!) doubles teams of badminton players were thrown out of the Olympics for deliberately attempting to throw their first-round round robin matches in order to gain a better seeding in the next, elimination round.

Cheating in the Olympics—or in any sport or any sport’s tournament—isn’t new, and it’s no less reprehensible for that.  But what are the players saying about this?  Many—most?—favor the disqualifications.  But the People’s Republic of China’s Lin Dan, one of their top male badminton players, said he didn’t think the players were at fault, saying the sporting body

should have thought ahead and seen that this kind of situation might happen and thought what they could have done to avoid this situation.

What kind of culture teaches its people that it’s OK to cheat unless some external authority tells them not to?  What kind of culture teaches that if an individual fails of his honor, it’s not his fault—it’s some external authority’s fault?  What kind of culture takes away individual responsibility, individual honor, and usurps them to some external authority to see to?