Taiwanese athletes at the Paralympics wore the emblem of Taiwan’s opposition party after China piled pressure on international sport administrators.
The News Lens
Date: 2016/09/20
By: Hsu Chia-yu
Taiwanese athletes at the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics were forced to change the emblem on their
Photo Credit: REUTERS/達志影像
uniforms after pressure from China.
Chinese Taipei Paralympic Committee (CTPC) chair Chen Lee-chou (陳李綢) said that two weeks before the Paralympics opened, Chinese authorities protested against the emblem on Taiwan’s uniform — the 12 white spokes of a sun touching the rim of a blue circle — and requested it be changed to the version of the sun used by Taiwan’s Beijing-friendly opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), in which the 12 spokes do not connect with the rim.
Chen, speaking this morning, said the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) then sent a letter to Taiwan, which competes under the name Chinese Taipei, requesting the emblem be changed before the games started.
The committee, concerned that athletes may not be eligible to compete, subsequently decided to cover the national emblem on the athletes’ uniforms with stickers using the KMT version of the emblem, she says. [FULL STORY]
