Taiwanese former taekwondo champion Su Li-wen (蘇麗文) threw in her support behind for fellow taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) on Wednesday with an entry on her blog, accusing China of resorting to dirty tricks.
Su described Yang’s disqualification as “a game that killed a Taiwanese athlete.”
Su is largely remembered as the national heroine who, despite falling to the ground 11 times after being injured, continued to fight until her coach carried her out of the ring at the 2008 Olympics, displaying a bout of perseverance that moved many Taiwanese.
Su, who won the taekwondo championship at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, finished first in the 2007 Summer Universade and brought home a gold from the 2008 Asian Taekwondo Championship, said in her blog that she felt very angry after watching the match on Wednesday because the judge not only disqualified Yang, but also accused Yang of “cheating.”
“I find it extremely unacceptable,” Su said. “I’ve been a [taekwondo] athlete for many years. This was the first time I have heard such a ridiculous accusation.”
“[Yang] scored with upper movements. Given our ranking as among the top three in the world, there is no need for us to play tricks against an opponent who is way below us. This is absolutely a political smear campaign,” Su said.
Su said Yang is almost unparallel in her category, adding that Yang scored six points with pressing movements and two with back kicks, all of which were manually scored by the judge rather than by the electronic score system.
As such, it goes to show that Yang was way ahead of her opponent and that cheating was unnecessary, Su said.
“It doesn’t matter if we fight to the death during the Games, but we cannot accept such an accusation and unfair treatment,” Su said.
She urged other Taiwanese athletes to restore the Taiwanese team’s honor in the next three days, saying “we are the undefeatable children of Taiwan.”
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
ANNUAL EVENT: Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in Daan Park, with an event zone operating from 10am to 6pm This year’s Taipei Floral Picnic is to be held at Daan Park today and tomorrow, featuring an exclusive Pokemon Go event, a themed food market, a coffee rave picnic area and stage performances, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said yesterday. Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in the park as attractions, with an exclusive event zone operating from 10am to 6pm, it said. Participants who complete designated tasks on-site would have a chance to receive limited-edition souvenirs, it added. People could also try the newly launched game Pokemon Pokopia in the trial area, the department said. Three PokeStops are
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
RSS