Former Taoyuan County commissioner John Wu has been confirmed by the nation’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) clubs as the league’s new head after he prevailed over challenges from several other political figures.
The league’s four clubs agreed to Wu’s appointment after considering a number of candidates, all of whom are affiliated with either the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Wu is to become commissioner of the league next month after the Lunar New Year holidays, with the 26th CPBL season set to start in March.
The race for league commissioner saw Wu defeat a strong challenge by former minister of the interior Yu Cheng-hsien, a senior DPP figure.
According to Sports Administration officials, other nominated figures for the post were KMT Legislator Justin Chou and former minister of education Chiang Wei-ling, who resigned in July last year over a scandal involving alleged fraud in the publication of scientific papers.
The CPBL’s top post was left vacant when former commissioner Hwang Jenn-tai resigned on July 25 to shoulder responsibility for a contract dispute with MP & Silva, a Singapore-based sports media rights and broadcasting company.
Wu’s appointment was confirmed at the CPBL managing board of directors meeting on Tuesday.
News of Wu’s confirmation was mostly greeted with apathy, disenchantment and negative sentiments by baseball fans and critics.
Many people said the position is a “pig’s trough” for KMT officials and Wu landed it because he was out of a job, being ousted by voters in the then-Taoyuan County constituency.
“This shows why Taiwanese baseball will never make progress; the government interferes in sports too often,” a netizen surnamend Chao said. “Wu was appointed because of his political connections and his clout as a KMT official.”
“What does Wu know about baseball? He is notorious for a land-grab scandal; using government power and the police to take over people’s land to benefit himself and big corporations through his pet program known as the Taoyuan Aeropolis project. I urge fans to boycott CPBL from now on,” a netizen using the name A-ren said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier