The arbitration controversy in the world taekwondo championships
calls on a referee selecting program for the 2008 Beijing Olympic
Games, World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) president Choue Chung-Won
said on Tuesday.
Choue said 300 referees will be invited into a training camp for
the Olympic Games, with 29 to be named to arbitrate in 2008 in
Beijing.
"We'll have 50 referees selected from the 300 candidates to
arbitrate in the world-class competitions after the training camp
in August. The elite 29 referees form the Olympic referee team in
Beijing," Choue told a news conference before the end of the 18th
world championships.
Five teams filed appeals towards the referees with two of them
were accepted by the Board of Supervisor of WTF.
Iran appealed for the second kyong-go, warning in taekwondo,
which resulted in a sudden-death semi-final loss of the legendary
Hadi Bonehkohal to Nesar Bahavee of Afghanistan in the men's 72kg
on Saturday.
South Korea also argued against the referee decision in the
similar situation after Lee Sun-Jae lost to the eventual champion
Jose Antonio Ramos of Spain.
The WTF is working on the electronic equipment to replace the
manual counting.
Choue said the WTF has no decision whether to use the electronic
equipment in the 2008 Beijing Olympics though it theoretically
passes all tests.
(Xinhua News Agency May 23, 2007)