The government yesterday said that it would file an official suit with the Court of Arbitration for Sport over the disqualification on Wednesday of Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) from a taekwondo event at the Asian World Games in Guangzhou, China.
Executive Yuan spokesman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) confirmed that the Executive Yuan had called on the services of prominent law firm Lee and Li Attorneys-At-Law (理律法律事務所) to help it build the case.
“Lee and Li will handle the legal action on behalf of Taiwan with regard to the inappropriate disqualification of Yang Shu-chun,” Chiang said.
The bizarre decision against Yang has incited mounting outcries aimed at the competition’s organizers, especially Asian Taekwondo Union (ATU) officials, who have been accused of manufacturing a reason to eliminate the Taiwanese athlete.
The Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee appealed to the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) on Friday to investigate the controversy. It presented videotapes and other evidence to disprove ATU officials’ accusations against Yang.
The ATU formally apologized on Saturday for an inflammatory comment posted on its Web site that accused Yang of “trying to pull a fast one over the taekwondo world.”
The ATU apology came a day after the government issued a statement demanding an apology from the organization for its improper “cheating” allegation against the country and the controversial disqualification of Yang.
OCA officials met on Saturday with ATU officials and others who were part of the technical committee monitoring the Asian Games taekwondo competition, to gather information about the dispute.
ATU president Lee Dai-soon of South Korea said at a post-meeting news conference that the probe was still ongoing and that no formal results were available yet.
Meanwhile, a special envoy from the government arrived in Guangzhou to offer assistance to Yang.
Minister Without Portfolio Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗) was assigned by Premier Wu Den-yi (吳敦義) to visit Yang at the site of the Games and deliver a note from the premier to help comfort her.
Yang was stopped in the middle of an under-49kg bout with a Vietnamese competitor and told to leave the site on grounds that she was wearing illegal electronic sensors in her socks, an incident that shocked the Taiwanese delegation and angered the public back home.
Tzeng, who arrived in Guangzhou via Los Angeles following a 30-hour flight from Colombia, told Yang at the athletes’ village that “the government will do everything to restore” her honor after she had been wrongfully deprived of her chance to compete in the Games.
He said both President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Wu cared very much about Yang’s mistreatment, adding that “we will get to the bottom of the facts” surrounding the organizers’ decision to keep her out of the competition.
Tzeng said Taiwanese athletes won two gold medals in taekwondo events following the Yang incident, a result of the government’s insistence on protecting Taiwanese athletes’ rights to compete fairly.
“Besides showing the government’s support for our athletes, we would like to cheer them up too as they participate in more competitions,” Tzeng said.
Tzeng had cut short his South American tour to fly to Guangzhou to assist Yang.
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