With the tenth National Games reaching the halfway point, the hottest topic during China's biggest sporting event isn't the great athletic feats, but the string of scandals rocking the Games from match-fixing allegations to heated referee disputes.

A series of controversial results involving several Olympic champions occurred during the first week of the 12-day Games in sports such as gymnastics, judo, cycling and taekwondo.

Last Saturday, a re-match was held on women's judo in the 78 kilograms category. Sun Fuming, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics gold medallist of Liaoning province, was accused of deliberately losing to Yan Sirui, a Liaoning native who represented for the Chinese Army Team in the Games, in the final of the event two days earlier.

Sun appeared to lose her game immediately after following a gesture from her coach Liu Yongfu. She fell to the ground after Yan's slight touch in just one second, allowing Yan to win by ippon.

Spectators were furious by that time and officials came quickly to handle the incident.

The state sports governing body, China's State General Administration of Sports (CSGAS), gave coach Liu a warning, and a re-match was ordered.

Sun then lost to Yan again in a fierce match.

"I have tried my very best," said Sun, who won the Olympic gold medal in 1996 and claimed a bronze at the 2004 Athens Games, after the re-match. "I felt very relaxed now since I was under heavy pressure in the previous two days."

"If the punishment handed to me could let all the others learn a lesson, I would welcome the decision and be willing to be the target of criticism," said the coach Liu, who has trained three Olympic champions including Sun.

The officials said they will not use the re-match to solve the controversies again and promised a harsher punishment.

"The decision for the re-match was made under special conditions concerning the athlete, so it won't happen again," said Song Zhaonian, vice director of Weightlifting and Combat Sports Administrative Centre of CSGAS. "Fixing the match by the coach is a behaviour that severely went against the spirit of sportsmanship. We won't tolerate such things."

Arguable scoring system

Song admitted that such phenomena at the National Games can be traced back to the scoring system.

Starting from the eighth National Games in 1997, a "points sharing" system was introduced. According to the system, the medals and points gained by athletes from the Chinese Army Team would be shared by both the Army team and the athletes' native provincial teams, a way to promote the exchange of sports talents among the Army team and local ones.

Since the winning athletes and their coaches can receive huge awards like prize money and even apartments, some teams preferred to let athletes from the army team win the game so that more people can benefit.

"The exchange policy is helpful for different provinces to complement the sports elite, but it is wrongfully exploited by some local groups," Song said. "We have to further improve the policies."

The judo sport is not the only one that was tainted by such match-fixing scandals.

The cycling track was rocked by disputes last Sunday as Yunnan's Yang Limei refused to step on the podium for the bronze medal after being knocked down during the competition.

The Yunnan cyclist insisted that Ningxia's Li Wei, who knocked her down in the 49th lap of the women's individual point race, had been trying to block her on purpose. Li Yan from Shandong Province easily won the gold after the incident.

After the race, Yang refused to attend the awarding ceremony, saying: "I'll never accept an unfair result until given a reasonable explanation."

The Yunnan team has already raised an appeal to the discipline committee of the tournament.

"I heard Li Yan told Li Wei to block my way before I was knocked down the track," said Yang, whose right leg was injured during the collision.

Although Li Wei denied any contact with Li Yan, a question mark lingered because Li Wei, a native of Shandong, is an exchange cyclist from the East China province to Ningxia.

Suspicions and disputes also transpired in the gymnastics courts as well.

A strong complaint was filed by the Tianjin team last Saturday over the rings. In that apparatus final, the gold medal went to hometown veteran Huang Xu of Jiangsu.

A 0.038-point disadvantage prevented Tianjin's Dong Zhen from his third national title in a row.

The Tianjin team questioned the deduction scoring, but the arbitration committee rejected the appeal after reviewing the video, citing two major mistakes in Dong's routine.

But the Tianjin gymnastics team leader Yao Hongcheng bitterly attacked the verdict.

"I am unsatisfied with the final decision. Why did they only pick the flaws of Dong Zhen but not mention Huang's," Yao said. "What if Huang is not a hometown gymnast?"

Meanwhile, the boxing and the taekwondo arenas were troubled by large-scale walkovers.

In the boxing competitions that were held in advance before the opening ceremony, nine boxers withdrew.

In the just-ended taekwondo competitions, among all the 111 matches, walkouts happened in 26 matches, with all athletes citing injury as reasons.

"The implementation of the 'points sharing' system caused a series of negative problems that were not expected before," said Chang Jianping, another leading official of the weightlifting and combat administrative centre. "The system is likely to be changed in the next Games."

Refereeing scandals also marred the games as three wrestling judges were banned for life on bribery charges. Zhong Ling, the country's leading rhythmic gymnast, even accused referees of fixing the competition results.

Officials alerted

The growing problems during the Games have made the state's leading sports officials sit up and take notice.

Liu Peng, head of CSGAS said: "We will show no mercy on offenders. We must uphold the justice in sport."

He also called on closer scrutiny on athletes who will result to points sharing between different delegations.

"The tenth National Games is important to the preparation of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and it will affect the initiative of all the athletes," Liu said. "The offences have led to nasty effects."

(China Daily October 19, 2005)