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Saturday, September 30
Point system annoys some in Olympic debut
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- The last impression the people running
taekwondo want its Olympic debut to leave is that it's just too
Korean for the rest of the world to ever really break into.
|  | | Jae-Eun Jung of Korea, left, in action against Hieu Ngan Tran of Vietnam women's 57 kg final. Tran won the silver, which gave her country its first Olympic medal ever. |
But while the World Taekwondo Federation took pains to keep that
from happening, they weren't able to escape a little controversy.
And perhaps a bit of sour grapes.
To make sure the nation that created taekwondo -- the "way of
the hand and foot" -- didn't completely dominate the medals, each
country except host Australia was limited to only four athletes in
the Sydney Games, where eight golds were contested.
As a result, the breadth of the competition was better than most
would have thought.
Nearly 50 nations, from Austria to Venezuela, entered. In
addition to South Korea, Cuba, Australia, the United States, China
and Greece all go home with golds. Taekwondo even provided Vietnam
with its first-ever Olympic medal -- a silver for Tran Hieu Ngan in
the women's 57-kilogram class.
Even some traditional rivals of the sport were impressed.
"I watched two days of taekwondo, and I think it is in many
ways superior to karate," said Yushiro Yagi, head of Japan's
Olympic delegation.
But despite large and very spirited crowds each day, taekwondo's
debut was marred by a few bumps.
Like most sports involving judges, the point system posed a
problem.
Charles Bayou, an official with the Ivory Coast team, said he
was unhappy about the refereeing. He was so upset that he even wept
during a match involving Ivorian player N'Guessan Sebastien Konan.
Konan lost to Mexico's Victor Manuel Estrada Garibay by a score
of 7-4 in a repechage match for the bronze medal.
"I am a little bit disappointed at the results, which were
unfair," Bayou said. "I don't know why they did not count
correctly."
In taekwondo, three judges sit around the square fighting area.
When they believe a competitor has scored a valid kick, they press
a red or blue button corresponding with the color of the athlete's
headgear. The athlete with the most points after three three-minute
rounds is the winner.
Unless the buttons are pressed virtually simultaneously, the
points won't register, however. And there is always room for
dispute over what constitutes a valid scoring kick.
Halfway through the four-day competition, two unofficial
complaints were lodged over point disputes, both in bouts that went
in favor of Australians, prompting the World Taekwondo Federation
to issue a statement in its own defense.
"The WTF has placed a top priority on impartiality in order to
present this first-time medal sport in the best possible light,"
it said. The statement noted that judges found to make repeated
arbitrary calls can be suspended for up to four years.
Questions also were raised over whether judges were unnecessarily
hard on the Korean entrants, allegedly because the WTF believes it
would be better for the sport's future for Korea not to be too
dominant.
But, with Korea doing quite well, those claims are hard to
support.
South Korea won three golds and one silver, better than it had
expected coming into the games.
"I've no big complaint," South Korean coach Kim Jong-ki said.
Kim said the one gold that got away -- when Sin Jun-sik lost to
America's Steve Lopez -- was lost in a close, but fair, bout.
"The decision could go either way," he said. "Our player has
superior techniques, but could not use them because of his
opponent's height advantage."
Kim admitted that the most important thing for Korea at these
games is keeping taekwondo's Olympic future alive, not taking home
all the golds.
"I don't know if there is any subtle effort by referees to
check and balance our supremacy in the sport," he said. "But I
agree that spreading the golds among a variety of countries would
help promote taekwondo worldwide."
French team coach Philippe Bouedo wrote off the complaints as
mostly just sour grapes.
"The refereeing so far has been very good and fair," he said.
"When you lose, you are upset. When you win, you are happy."
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