The Deaflympics organizers came under fire yesterday for transportation and organizational chaos that has caused difficulties for competing athletes and journalists covering the games.
Competitors and reporters complained about the inconvenience of transportation between the 36 hotels accommodating the athletes and the competition venues in Taipei and its suburbs.
To ensure their athletes arrive at competition venues on time, some countries have hired private vehicles for their teams, press reports said.
Other competitors complained that they could not find out when they were scheduled to compete and that the official Games Web site fails to provide complete information on events and takes too long to post results.
Answering the criticism, Rhythm Lin (林志達), media contact person for the Deaflympics Organizing Committee, said that the official Web site was updated daily and athletes would know their scheduled competition dates.
He also sought to explain the confusion over information on the official Web site that was reported on Sunday and yesterday.
“The arrangements for each event, including the time and venue that each event will be held, must be signed off by members of the Technical Committee,” Lin said. “The committee had to draw lots to determine the assignment of members to the games. The list from the Technical Committee was not finalized until Saturday. That’s why we were having a hard time providing correct and timely information.”
Lin said that the work should be back on track now. He also apologized to the media for any inconvenience.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) said yesterday that athletes from Azerbaijan found out that they did not have a place to stay when they arrived in Taiwan on Wednesday.
In response, Deaflympics Committee CEO Emile Sheng (盛治仁) said participating countries should have decided where their athletes were going to stay by the time they arrived in Taiwan. The committee simply offered to make reservations on their behalf. Sheng said that the team from Azerbaijan did not complete the necessary procedures to finalize their hotel reservation.
Lin said that one Azerbaijani athlete was unable to check into a room because he did not have any money on him, but an athlete from another country helped pay for the room.
Taipei spent six years and millions of dollars preparing for the Deaflympics and Taiwan hopes that the successful hosting of the games could raise the nation’s international profile.
The games have had their fair share of problems. One of the most embarrassing was the construction of an eight-lane swimming pool at the Taipei Stadium, when an Olympic-size swimming poll should have 10 lanes. Because of the mistake, water sport events have to be held at a swimming pool in Hsinchu, one hour’s drive from Taipei.
The Deaflympics opened at the Taipei Stadium on Saturday evening and will continue until next Tuesday, with 3,000 athletes from 80 nations and regions participating.
In other news, Netizens used their creativity to mock President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) leadership as Taipei mayor in a YouTube video of him declaring the opening of Taipei’s Deaflympics in sign language.
In the 20-second video entitled “Ma Ying-jeou’s sign language teaching program,” Ma declares the opening of the Deaflympics, but the subtitles are changed to say “during my term [as Taipei mayor], I decided to build the Maokong Gondola and Muzha-Neihu MRT line. Taipei citizens had two more choices of mass transportation, but they were both shut down, making me feel embarrassed. Please don’t distribute embarrassing news. The former Taipei mayor and the sitting one [Ma and current Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin, 郝龍斌] are closely connected and both responsible. Let’s fumble together.”
Hau has decided to continue operating the Muzha-Neihu MRT Line for the duration of the Deaflympics despite a failure to fix frequent malfunctions and system shutdowns. About 150,000 passengers depend on the line every day.
It was not the first time Ma or his administration has been ridiculed on YouTube. Last month, a YouTube video superimposed the heads of Ma, Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), Executive Yuan Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川) and former minister of health Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) onto Chippendales models, dancing to the tune “Sorry, Sorry,” a South Korean dance song.
The video mocked the Ma administration for its slow and disorganized response to Typhoon Morakot — the country’s deadliest storm in at least 50 years.
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