Not playing to win

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the biggest controversies of the London Olympics was the disqualification of 8 badminton players for not trying to win their final group matches. The format of the competition made it advantageous for them to lose in order to secure weaker opposition in the following knock-out rounds.
Meanwhile in the swimming pool, the format of the competition meant many swimmers took it (relatively) easy in order to conserve energy for future rounds or other events.
Across at the stadium, athletes did similarly in their heats.
Down in Weymouth, the format of the competition meant that the British sailor Ben Ainslie won a gold medal coming 9th (out of 10) in the final medal race, by purposefully distracting the only other guy that could beat him, into 10th, while allowing 8 other boats to beat him.
On face value, these are all examples of not giving one's best. Which is against the Olympic ideals. 
So why did the badminton players get disqualified while all of my other examples get lauded for brilliant tactics, or being very sensible approaches to energy conservation?
Surely the badminton players were also only trying to conserve energy across the whole tournament - in those fateful group matches but also later in the quarter- and semi-finals, in order to give themselves a better chance at a medal. The same as the swimmers and athletes in their heats.
I think that the only difference here is: What is normal?
In a badminton match that is one on one, it is "normal" to try to win every match.
In swimming and athletics, it is normal to only give fully of one's best in the final (except if something unexpected happens earlier and it becomes necessary to give more in order to get into the final). In sailing, it is normal to be extremely tactical and putting off one's opponent is used often as one of these tactics. Importantly, these are multi-contestant "heats" or "matches" rather than one-on-one.
What's to learn here? Well, the difference between the shame of failure and the celebration of success can depend on the measure of "normality" against which one is judged.
In your business, are you absolutely sure you know what the standards are for your success, do you know what measure of normal you will be judged against?
If you think you are, great...but just think that Barclays, G4S and a number of other recent examples also thought that what they did was OK because it was "normal", only to find out later that actually a different normal was applied to them.
I encourage you to think again and make absolutely sure you know the rules of the game, the written ones and the unwritten ones.