On Thursday, a national bodybuilding champion, Lin Chih-cheng (
Due to Taiwanese people's obsession with academic achievement, sports development has long been ignored. In some high schools, the time allotted for physical education is frequently used for extra instruction in mathematics and other academic subjects. As a result, the overall physical condition of our citizens is poor.
To boost Taiwan's sports development, the government established the NCPFS in 1997. Five years have passed, and problems remain. To this day, a world-class stadium is still lacking in the capital city of Taipei. Almost none of the nation's major cities are capable of hosting large-scale international sporting events.
More seriously, power struggles among sports leaders and factions have never stopped. Take the 2000 Olympic Games for instance. Taiwan's hopes for gold medals were dashed, as champion female weightlifters Chen Jui-lian (陳瑞蓮) and Wu Mei-yi (吳美儀) were barred for taking anabolic steroids. As Taiwan's sports leaders severely and repeatedly blamed one another in front of the international community, the International Weightlifting Federation finally ruled that no replacements would be accepted.
Unfortunately, the nation's sports leaders did not learn a lesson. The 14th Asian Games is two months away, but only six swimmers have qualified for the Games.
This is a result of the power struggles within the Chinese Taipei Swimming Association (中華民國游泳協會)over the past few months -- as the group is too busy to provide assistance to its swimmers.
This time, the bodybuilder's case is partly a result of the poor management of the NCPFS. Since the council did not establish a selection committee to openly select athletes for the upcoming Asian Games, no wonder the six-time national bodybuilding champion was so angry after he was excluded from the list. In fact, according to local media, the bodybuilder repeatedly petitioned the NCPFS for a fair selection process before the incidents, but no action was taken by the council. It even purposely hid such information when police were investigating the case.
To save Taiwan's sports, the following measures have to be taken into consideration. First, the leadership of the NCPFS must be improved urgently. The council chairman must actively integrate the disparate sports associations and factions, as well as effectively supervise the cultivation and selection of players.
Second, the sports authorities should learn from the recent fiasco of the Senegal soccer team's visit. They should spend taxpayer money on our athletes, instead of wasting the money to promote expensive and meaningless "dollar diplomacy." The distribution of cash rewards for our athletes and coaches should also be clearly defined.
Last, a transparent selection system must be built immediately, so that our athletes can compete with one another fairly while political interference is excluded.
It goes without saying that sports can improve not only our health but also our status in the international community.
It's hoped that the sports authorities can actively solve the above problems, so that our athletes can give full play to their talents, and win honor and glory for Taiwan.
Chang Sheng-en is a lecturer in English at the National Taipei College of Business.
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