Taiwan's Olympic hopes are skating on thin ice ahead of the opening ceremony at next month's Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Bickering over financial support for the nation's bobsled and luge teams threatens to spoil what should be a unique chance to compete on the world's biggest sporting stage.
Around 3.5 billion people are expected to tune in on Feb. 8 when the Games officially begin, but Taiwan's Olympians feel they have been frozen out by their own government.
They claim the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, in particular, is taking them for a ride.
Stealing the limelight
"We have qualified for the Olympics all on our own," the Honorary Chairman of the Taiwan Luge and Bobsled Association Hsu Chi-you (許啟祐) said. "Despite all the difficulties, we overcame them and now we will compete at the Olympics."
Hsu, however, is bitter and claimed that even though the bobsled and luge teams had achieved qualification for the Olympics without much government backing, the Olympic committee will now take the credit and send an eight-member "observation team" to the US.
"Every four years the [Olympic committee] waits to find out whether we have qualified for the Games and then they vote themselves money to go to the Olympics," Hsu said.
Neither Hsu or any other member of the bobsled and luge association will attend the Games. "We have been working for four years and spent all our money to achieve this, but we will not be able to go," he said.
The Taipei Times has contacted the Olympic committee about the issue, but the group has not responded.
Lee Chia-chan (
"Everyone knows that sports in Taiwan is no good and that someone is needed to shed light on this fact," Lee said.
He said the National Council of Physical Education and Sports had decided at a meeting last week to concentrate on just 12 sports.
"They say these are the main sports we should develop. ... Unless you stand a chance of getting a gold medal then it is not a sport.
"This is okay for communist China which is not democratic -- but not here in Taiwan, surely. It is a misleading idea of sportsmanship for the sports council to be only concerned with medals."
Ironically, considering the fact Taiwan is a tropical country, its bobsled and luge teams have been pretty successful over the years.
Its luge team has attended the Winter Games since 1976 and the bobsled team has qualified every four years since 1984. In that year it came fourth in a World Cup event.
Taiwan's bobsled team is the best in Asia and the team's driver, Chen Chin-shan (陳金山) will be competing in his fourth Olympics next month -- a record for the country.
"Though we always attend the Olympic Games the sports council gives us only 0.08 percent of the funding that is available to sports associations. How can this fair?" Lee said.
"They never consider us. We have an old and decrepit bobsled that does not meet International Olympic Committee regulations, we have no facilities and limited assistance."
Lee said he feared the bobsled that has been rented will not come up to scratch either.
Pyrrhic victory
The team has made it to the Olympics -- a victory in itself -- by digging deep into its own pockets to compete in European qualifying events.
It costs around US$600 per run for the Taiwan team to compete in qualifying events in Europe and the luge and bobsled association's government funding of just over NT$500,000 for last year was used up on just one competition.
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