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)