Jury changes result after riots strike taekwondo

Bangkok, Dec 9: A riot erupted at the Asian Games taekwondo tournament, forcing police to protect the jury of the martial art sport from ...

Bangkok, Dec 9: A riot erupted at the Asian Games taekwondo tournament, forcing police to protect the jury of the martial art sport from hundreds of angry Thai fans.

There have been daily battles involving competitors or spectators at the taekwondo, leading to a step-up in security.

One judge said there were `hair-raising’ incidents Tuesday night as policemen moved in with electric truncheons to protect the jury after it awarded a women’s flyweight semi-final bout against Thailand’s Usa Silapajarn in favour of Indonesia’s Juana Wangsa.

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Hundreds of spectators poured onto the arena, hurling plastic bottles and any other objects they could find. The jury changed the result, witnesses said.

Usa was certain she had done enough to beat her rival but was stunned when the referee raised Wangsa’s hand in the air. Usa threw her headgear in the air and fans poured onto the court amid chants of `cheat, cheat.’

Judges Committee chairman Hoong Sun-Chun said they watched the video four times before awarding thematch to Usa.

Later South Korean fans staged a similar protest after the judges first awarded the women’s lightweight final to Taiwan’s Hsu Chih-Ling over Korean favourite Lee Sun-Hee. Police again had to move in to separate rival Taiwanese and Korean fans.

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Games officials today blamed breakdown of an electronic scoring system for close scores that set off the near-riots.

They said judges were forced to revert to scoring on paper when the electronic system malfunctioned on the weekend prior to the start of the competition on Monday. The less precise paper-scoring has been constantly challenged by the crowd and competitors.

“We are having to use pencil and paper to score,” a taekwondo official said. “It is ridiculous.”

Lao Kun Hing, a competition judge from Hong Kong, said he was astounded at the number of protests lodged by team officials. “At the Junior World Championships in Turkey in September there was only one protest for the whole competition and here we have had three in two days,” hesaid.