Claims by Taiwan's bobsled team that the government has failed to support its efforts to compete in the upcoming winter Olympics were rejected yesterday by the National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports (
The five-man bobsled team is the nation's only guaranteed representative at the Winter Games -- on Feb. 8 in Salt Lake City, Utah -- although two members of the luge team are still trying to qualify.
In an open letter to the government last week, bobsled team captain Chen Chin-shan (
They said their "old and decrepit" snowcar failed to meet international standards and they were unable to buy a new one, which would cost US$30,000, because of inadequate support from the government.
"We worry that the snowcar we have had to rent will not pass the IOC [International Olympic Committee] test and that all our hard work will be undone," they said in the letter. "We have worked and saved hard to reach our goal [of competing in the Winter Games] but of all the sports associations we are given the least money."
"Sports is a sure path to develop our national diplomacy," they said, but the fact that a flag-handing over ceremony for the team had not been arranged showed that the government did not care.
In response, Hsu Hsin-wen (
He said a flag handing-over ceremony would take place, but it was unlikely the president would be present, as is traditional.
"The [sports council] disagrees with the bobsled team's action," Hsu said. "Team members should express their opinions to the [sports council] through the country's luge and bobsled association (
The Honorary Chairman of the Luge and Bobsled Association Hsu Chi-you (
He said the government had provided just over NT$500,000 to the association last year and this had been used to pay for training and qualification events.
Hsu said he had not been informed of any other support.
"It's all very strange. We asked the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee in March last year whether they would support us, but they must have put our letter in the waste basket because we never heard anything from them," Hsu said. "They told us the association was no good and classified us among the seven worst sports associations. We don't know how they arrived at this conclusion, because actually our record of success has been good."
Taiwan has been competing in the luge since 1976 and the bobsled team has competed at every Winter Olympics since 1984 and won a World Cup event in Italy that year.
Hsu said he suspected a lack of legislative representation was the the reason why Taiwan's luge and bobsled teams have been ignored.
"We are thinking this is very unfair. If we had a legislator on our committee then we would have no trouble getting money. We did have a legislator, but he quit and this is probably why we're being ignored."
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