China wins gold, silver in badminton

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LONDON, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- China's Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei won the first gold medal awarded in the scandal-plagued Olympic badminton tournament Friday with a victory in mixed doubles.

Zhang and Zhao defeated another Chinese pairing made up of Xu Chen and Ma Jin in the finals 21-11, 21-17.

Badminton mixed doubles has been contested in the Olympics five times and China has won three of the gold medals handed out. The other two have gone to South Korea.

The bronze medal was won by Joachim Fischer and Christianna Pedersen of Denmark, who defeated Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir of Indonesia 21-12, 21-12.

The men's singles final was set and it will find world No. 1 Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia meeting Lin Dan of China.

Saturday's action will include the gold medal match in women's doubles, which became the focus of attention earlier in the week when eight players from that phase of the competition were expelled from the Olympics for trying to manipulate the pairings for quarterfinal action.

Teams from Russia and Canada that had lost out in the group phase of play and then were reinstated to replace two of the dismissed teams will play for the bronze medal.