The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday asked the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to refrain from getting involved in sports associations.
The Chinese-language China Times reported yesterday that a number of KMT politicians would run for leadership positions at the nation’s sports associations.
DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) told a press conference that the KMT Central Standing Committee had asked KMT legislators to run for chairperson of the associations.
PHOTO: CNA
“Sports in Taiwan would be finished if sports associations fell under the control of politicians,” Chiu said.
The KMT should not try to expand its influence into sports, which should be run by professionals in the field, she said.
KMT Legislator Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄), a former Olympic medalist, responded by saying that not everything was politically motivated.
Huang told reporters that it would be acceptable for a lawmaker to head a sports associations as long as that person cared about developing the sport.
It is normal for political parties to strengthen their support bases in this way, Huang said, adding that every political party did so.
“For example, the Chinese Taipei Badminton Association is headed by [former DPP legislator] Kuo Jeng-liang [郭正亮],” Huang said.
But Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Spokesperson Chen Shu-rong (陳淑容) yesterday denied that the party had asked its legislators to seek influence at sports associations, saying the Central Standing Committee had never discussed the matter.
When asked for comment, KMT Legislator Sun Ta-chien (孫大千), who the China Times reported would run for chairman of the basketball association, said he was not interested.
KMT Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓) also dismissed rumors that he hoped to take over the badminton association.
“Frankly speaking, I don’t play badminton very often,” he said.
“I was once invited to run for chairman of the Chinese Taipei Swimming Association, but I don’t know how to breathe properly when swimming, so I said to them: ‘What if I sink to the bottom of the pool’” Chou said.
Meanwhile, DPP Legislator Kao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said yesterday that the chairman of the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA, 中華籃協), Wang Jan-da (王人達), should not seek to maintain control over the association once his term ends.
Wang had held the post for 20 years, Kao said, and during that time Taiwan’s international rankings in basketball had dropped.
He said Wang’s term would end this year, but it was likely that Wang’s son or another person representing Wang would run for the post.
Kao said the Sports Affairs Council should urge Wang to let go of the post.
Also yesterday, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) criticized the council’s supervision of its funding.
Although the council funds the nation’s sports associations, it does not have a mechanism to review how the money is spent, she said, which explains why the nation’s showing in sports is weak.
Chen Ting-fei said the council had budgeted NT$1.62 billion (US$49 million) to promote baseball, but allowed local governments to use the money to build local government baseball teams.
Some hired senior baseball players who had been fired by professional baseball teams for their involvement in gambling, she said.
The council did not use the budget to fund school teams responsible for training young players, she said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not