Japanese taekwondo champ gets nod to compete in Athens

TOKYO: Japan’s Olympic taekwondo bronze medallist Yoriko Okamoto got the go-ahead yesterday to represent her country in the Athens Games, despite a simmering feud over who governs the combat sport in Japan. 

The power struggle had already stopped Okamoto, who won the women’s 67kg-class bronze in Sydney in 2000, and other Japanese taekwondo aces from competing in the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea. 

The Olympic charter requires national Olympic committees to enter athletes in the multi-sport festival with approval from their sport’s domestic governing organisations. 

Both the All-Japan Taekwondo Association and the Japan Taekwondo Federation, a splinter group, claim primacy over the sport here. 

But the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) decided to send the 32-year-old Okamoto to Athens as an “indepedent competitor” as no organisation is deemed to be effectively governing taekwondo in Japan, JOC president Tsunekazu Takeda said. 

“It is up to the national Olympic committee to determine if there exists a certain national sport federation,” he told reporters after a special JOC executive meeting.  

“We made an independent decision on an extraordinary measure,” he added. 

Okamoto earned Japan’s sole Olympic berth in taekwondo by finishing second at the Asian qualifiers in Bangkok in February and her plight has led some 95,000 people to sign a petition asking for her to be allowed to go to Athens. 

Takeda said that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had confirmed that the dispatch of unaffiliated competitors was possible in the absence of authorised national sports organisations. 

His committee had demanded that the All-Japan Taekwondo Association unify with its rival organisation or the two groups dismantle altogether. 

Taekwondo, a centuries-old martial art involving kicking and punching which originated in Korea, made its debut as an Olympic Sport at the Sydney Games. – AFP