Taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君), who was disqualified during a match at the Asian Games in Guangzhou last month, was banned from competition for three months in a ruling released yesterday by the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF).
Yang’s coach Liu Tsung-ta (劉聰達) was suspended for one year and eight months, the federation said, while the Chinese Taipei Taewondo Association was fined US$50,000 because Yang and Liu protested the decision ringside at the Asiad on Nov. 17.
A tearful Yang said she felt her coach and the association were being punished because of her.
“The coach gave us athletes so much and yet was penalized,” Yang said in Taipei last night.
However, a three-month suspension is basically a slap on the wrist because there are no major international taekwondo events scheduled for the next three months.
Yang was disqualified for violating the rules by wearing extra electronic sensors in her socks to score more points. She was leading her opponent 9-0 when she was disqualified, and a dumbfounded Yang refused to leave the competitive arena for an extended period of time despite requests from officials to do so.
Video replays of the match showed Yang had removed the two sensors before the bout began. Inconsistent explanations from taekwondo officials about Yang’s disqualification had raised questions about the legitimacy of the dismissal.
Yang, Liu, her other coach Liu Ching-wen (劉慶文) and Chinese Taipei Taekwondo Association president Chen Chien-ping (陳建平) flew to South Korea on Friday to attend the WTF’s disciplinary committee hearing on Saturday.
The committee, made up of Egyptian, Israeli and Turkish officials, reviewed the decision to disqualify Yang and her protest.
Sports Affairs Council Minister Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) said last night the council would discuss the matter with its lawyers to determine whether it would be possible to handle Yang’s case and that of her coach separately.
The committee had previously lodged a protest with the Olympic Council of Asia over Yang’s case and filed an appeal with the international Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHELLEY SHAN
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying