Penalties on four South Korean female badminton players who were disqualified from the London Olympics in a “play-to-lose” scandal have been lifted, national sports officials said.

The Korean Olympic Committee announced that its disciplinary committee has withdrawn one-year national team suspensions on two doubles teams ― Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, and Kim Min-jung and Ha Jung-eun.

Along with a Chinese team and an Indonesian pair, the South Koreans were booted from the London Games for attempting to lose their round-robin matches on purpose in a bid to secure favorable draws in the quarterfinals. Soon after the Olympics, the Badminton Korea Association on Aug. 14, stripped the four players of their national team status and banned them from domestic and international competition for two years.

After the players appealed, the local governing body reduced the penalties on Aug. 22 to one-year suspensions from the national team along with six-month competition bans.

On Sept. 5, the KOC lifted the competition bans while keeping the national team suspensions in place. (Yonhap News)