Taiwanese speedskater Huang Yu-ting (黃郁婷) leading Taiwanese athletes as a flagbearer at the Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony has further upset the public and politicians in Taiwan, as she was branded a “disgrace” for “surrendering” after posting photos of herself practicing in China’s national team jersey.
“Taiwan’s Olympic athletes had in the past always worn our national uniform with pride and patriotism. We cannot accept Huang saying there is no issue of nationality in sports to explain her action,” retired army general Yu Pei-chen (于北辰) said yesterday.
“The crucial matter is that Huang is in Beijing to represent our country, just as all athletes represent their own countries,” the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) official added.
Photo courtesy of the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee via CNA
“Huang’s action amounted to surrendering and kowtowing to China, and not identifying with her Taiwan nationality. She has no sense of her own country or who the enemy state is,” Yu said.
He also criticized the Sports Administration, the Ministry of Education and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, saying that it was negligent to permit it.
Yu said it was unacceptable for an athlete to not know the importance of representing her country at the Olympics.
He also spoke of the “arrogance and disdain” of sports officials who ignored the public outcry by selecting Huang to be the national team’s flagbearer for Friday’s opening ceremony in Beijing, which was televised around the world.
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator and political commentator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) yesterday accused government agencies of failure at crisis management, saying that he and others had before Friday’s opening ceremony asked President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to replace Huang.
“President Tsai must have the courage to make this call,” Lin said.
“Huang being selected as a flagbearer at the opening ceremony has become a disgrace for Taiwan,” he said, adding that the story is atracting attention in Japan.
He also said that because Tsai is conscious of her image in the international sports community that it does not make sense for her to ignore the Huang controversy.
“Ministry of Education officials supposedly spoke to Huang on behalf of President Tsai about this controversy, then they glossed over what happened by saying she apologized,” Lin said.
“But we did not hear her apology ... then we see sports officials ignoring Taiwan’s public concerns and they still assigned Huang to be a flagbearer,” he wrote.
“Sports officials played dumb and spoke nonsense,” Lin wrote.
People have also discovered promotional materials showing Huang and her father endorsing Chinese inline skating manufacturer Skating Start.
People on social media have questioned whether Huang and her father, who is an inline speedskating coach, have a business relationship with Skating Start or are using the Olympics for personal gain in China.
DPP Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) also spoke about the controversy.
“For representing our country at the Olympics, how can Huang say there should be no issue of nationality in sports? She is being evasive, working to mislead people with such language,” the legislator said.
“Huang claimed that she exchanged uniforms as gifts between friends. Would her Chinese counterpart have the courage to post such photographs on Instagram or TikTok?” she said.
Other commenters said that Huang is old enough at 33 to understand the political issues involved when representing Taiwan abroad, having won medals at major sporting events such as the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS