Yang Shu-chun incident not the first time

-The previous questionable decisions by Korean athletic officials

(Posted by Sharon Lin)

When Yang Shu-chun was disqualified in the Guanzhou Asian Games on November 17, 2010, it was not the first time Taiwanese had been deprived out of athletic victories due highly controversial decisions.

On December 7, 2009, the 72 kilogram Men's Taekwondo Final was held at the East Asian Games. Taiwanese athlete Tseng Ching-hsiang competed with a South Korean athlete. Surprisingly, when the South Korean athlete made an obvious foul less than a minute after the game started, attacking Tseng’s throat. Tseng had fall down, and he cannot stands up. Unexpectedly, not only the referee not rule that this action was a foul, he announced that the game was over and that the gold medal went to the South Korean contestant. This aroused much discontent amongst the team of Taiwanese representatives present.

On October 11, 2002, Taiwanese athlete Chu Mu-yen's won in the Busan Asian Games men's competition came after surviving four fights. The final against South Korea's Park Hee-chul was always going to be an uphill battle with fanatical home-crowd support for Park.In the third and final round Chu was ahead 6-4, but a late flurry from the Korean put the score up to 7-6 in his favor. Chu kicked back just before the end to tie the score 7-7. It was the judge's opinion the Korean won despite the feeling articulated by Chu and Taiwan journalists present that Taiwan had won.

Those incidents of international tournament are only the tip of the iceberg. Taiwanese athletes are the minority in international tournament. The medal could be lost, but for every athletes to say the true spirit of sportsmanship could not be lost.