The Sports Administration yesterday said it would launch a review of how each sports association chooses members of its national team, while coaches and athletes are now able to file complaints directly on the agency’s Web site.
Sports Administration Director-General Lin Te-fu (林德福) made the remarks in response to controversy sparked by swimmer Mitzi Ting (丁聖祐), who complained that she was not chosen to compete in the 50m butterfly at the Taipei Universiade because the Chinese Taipei Swimming Association favored other swimmers over her, even though she won gold in the event at the National Intercollegiate Athletic Games earlier this year.
Lin reiterated that his agency valued each and every excellent athlete and would not allow any individual or system to ignore them.
“To ensure that athletes compete fairly, we will comprehensively review the system that is used to form national teams, train national team athletes and compete in international games. The agency also sees personnel reshuffles in each sports association in the latter half of this year as one of the crucial steps to sports reform,” Lin said.
Sports associations that formed national teams to compete in the Universiade have been asked to disclose how they chose athletes, including the procedures and the standards that were applied to select them.
Coaches must list why they recommended certain athletes in each event, he said, adding that all information would be uploaded to the Chinese Taipei University Sports Federation’s Web site (www.ctusf.org.tw) for public review.
The Sports Administration’s Web site would also have a special section for coaches and athletes who want to file complaints regarding the selection process for national teams.
There would be no major issues if athletes were chosen according to the guidelines governing the selection and training of national team athletes, as each body would have to list the criteria and procedures that an athlete has to meet and follow to qualify for a national team, Lin said.
Controversy often begins when no athletes meet the criteria and coaches have to make recommendations on athletes, as the public might question why an athlete was recommended, he added.
The criteria used to pick swimmers for the national team were stipulated by the Chinese Taipei University Sports Federation, the Chinese Taipei Swimming Association said.
If swimmers were chosen strictly based on the criteria, only swimmers in the men’s 50m freestyle and men’s 400m freestyle would have qualified for the national team, it added.
As Taiwan is hosting the Universiade, the association had to draft athletes to compete, even if they did not meet the criteria, the swimming body said.
No female swimmers met the criteria to qualify for the national team at the Universiade, but it wanted to use the opportunity to train relay swimmers to prepare them for next year’s Asian Games, it added.
Female swimmers were mainly drafted to compete in relay races, in which each competitors has to swim 100m, the swimming association said.
Due to Ting’s complaints, only one female swimmer is to compete in individual events at the Universiade, it added.
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