Penny is great like that; she’s been asked to make tough decisions in the past and made them admirably. To add to this, I’ve been lead to believe that it was actually Eric that persuaded Penny to keep OT on until the CG’s.
At any rate it’s not in Eric’s best interest to deliberately send in a weak relay team as he is judged on the result of the athletics team as a whole. Had the womens team been a long favorite and he could afford to put in a “favorite daughter”, then one may be able to construct some kind of conspiracy theory; however this was clearly not the case, and I doubt Eric would act in such a way any way.