The Sports Administration yesterday denied that it has any intention of bidding for the 2024 Olympic Games, adding that it is helping New Taipei City bid for the 2023 Asian Games.
The US Olympic Committee has been meeting in Boston to discuss possible cities to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. A report from WCVB-TV, an ABC-affiliated television station in Boston, said on Tuesday that Boston is likely to submit a bid for the 2024 Olympics along with Dallas, Los Angeles, Rome and Taipei.
In response, Sports Administration Director-General Ho Jow-fei (何卓飛) said that the administration is assisting New Taipei City with its bid for the 2023 Asian Games and the nation has no plans to bid for the 2024 Olympics because the Games are only a year apart.
Taipei City Department of Sports Commissioner Ho Chin-liang (何金梁) said that the capital’s top priority is to make sure the 2017 Summer Universiade is successful.
“We don’t have any plans nor have we received instructions from the central government [about the 2024 Olympics Games],” Ho Chin-liang said.
The Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee also denied having received such information, adding that a bid for such a large sports event would require inter-departmental coordination and that there would need to be a committee.
Though WCVB-TV failed to mention the source of its information, a bid for the 2024 Olympics was mentioned by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during a TV debate on Dec. 17, 2011, ahead of the presidential election.
“The nation has just secured the right to host the Summer Universiade, which is second only to the Olympics. We can now start training teenagers so that they have a chance to fight for gold medals in 2017,” Ma said in the debate. “With the experience of the Summer Universiade as the basis, our next goal would be [to host] the 2024 Olympic Games. Five countries who have held the Summer Universiade in the past have also held the Olympics, including the US and China.”
However, the idea of hosting the Olympics was dismissed by his opponent, People First Party presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜).
“Taiwan has hosted many sports events before and you can’t say that they were not important, but a good manager must prioritize the allocation of resources and pay more attention to the nation’s economy,” Soong said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit