Taiwanese sports officials will press the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) next week for an answer on why it did not formally notify Taiwan about the cancellation of a javelin event at the Beijing Paralympics in which a Taiwanese athlete was the favorite to win gold, a Chinese Taipei Paralympic Committee (CTPC) official said yesterday.
Lai Fu-huan, a board director of the CTPC, said the organization will ask the IPC in Beijing why the javelin’s F13 competition was removed from this year’s competition without the imput of the organization’s members.
The F13 category is one of three categories for visually impaired athletes at the Games and the one in which the athletes are the least impaired. The F11 and F12 javelin events will still be held.
Lai said the elimination of the event has dealt a huge blow to Taiwan’s Chiang Chih-chung, the gold medalist in the F13 men’s javelin at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics and the 2004 Athens Paralympics, who has been preparing for the competition for the past four years.
According to Lai, the IPC resolved in a meeting to have the men’s F13 javelin removed from the 2008 Paralympic competition list last year, without telling anybody.
“The cancelation was made without prior discussion by representatives of world Paralympic committees and the IPC never notified the CTPC of the cancelation with a formal statement,” Lai said.
“We would question why the event of men’s javelin throw F13 was held in the previous two Paralympics and is going to be held in the London Paralympics [in 2012], but it is not being held in Beijing?” Lai asked.
The CTPC was particularly confused by a letter from the IPC in February in response to Chiang’s application for accreditation at the Games.
The letter said Chiang had met the first quota allocation to participate in the Games but not the second quota allocation, without any further explanation.
What perplexes CTPC officials is why the letter denied Chiang participation for failing to meet qualification standards when it had already decided not to hold the event, and why the IPC has refused to provide a clear explanation of its actions despite repeated requests for clarification by the CTPC since then.
CTPC officials are currently in Beijing, along with 17 athletes from Taiwan who are preparing to compete in six sports in the Games which open today.
The Paralympic Games have always been held in the same year as the Olympic Games. Since the Seoul 1988 Paralympic Games and the Albertville 1992 Winter Paralympic Games, they have also taken place at the same venues as the Olympics.
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