Taiwan Olympic quest costs $103M

TAIWAN – The Taiwanese government is using 90 percent of its revenues from lottery games to put up what is conceivably the biggest budget ever in its quest for Olympic fame, hoping it could improve on its four-bronze medal finish in the Beijing 2008 Olympics with its participation in the London Olympics and beyond.

This island state of 23 million just north of Batanes has earmarked NT 4.3B (roughly US$103 million) – NT 2.1 billion of which comes from national funds – to bankroll a one-and-a-half year program that includes recruitment, selection, training and actual participation of the final list of players, including those of the Paralympic Games which takes place after the regular Olympics.

The program, which includes 26 of the 28 Olympic sports minus baseball and basketball, has produced a final roster of 42 athletes who have qualified from 14 sports for the Olympic Games slated July 27-Aug. 13 in London.

The training expenses include regular monthly allowances of about $2,000 per national player and a provision for bonuses for gold, silver and bronze medal finishes of every player and his coach.

Dana Tai, Taiwan’s Sports Affairs Council Minister, said the government has put up NT 2.5B this year, with its national lottery expected to raise NT 2.1B from 90 percent of its revenues.

Tai, a former national athlete who is now into triathlon, said that through her recommendations, the lottery games are now being used extensively for Taiwan’s sports program, which covers 26 sports, with elite sports as the major beneficiary.

She said the lottery games, a big source of government revenue, used to channel a bigger percentage to the poor sector of society but had shifted to sports as the island nation fuels its long-range campaign for a place among the superpowers of Olympic sports. In 2008, it had two bronze medals each from taekwondo and weightlifting, a drop from its 2-2-1 output in 2004.

Taiwan lottery is the counterpart of the Philippines’ Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, which runs the lotto games, and the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corp., which funds the operations of the Philippine Sports Commission from 2.5 percent of its revenues from the casinos.

The PSC and the Philippine Olympic Committee have, in fact, questioned Pagcor’s interpretation of the law on what percentage should be allotted to the PSC on a monthly basis.

Still, the six percent revenue being pushed by the PSC and POC is way below what is now being allotted to sports by the Taiwanese government.

The government fund comes from the General Appropriations Act of Congress but this is allotted to the PSC for its general and administrative expenses, with part of it going to the countryside development fund (CDF) for grassroots development and the national games.

The Pagcor funds are for elite training. The assistance to athletes from Pagcor is subject to the availability of these funds.

Tai said every gold is worth NT 12 million ($ 300,000), a silver NT 7 million ($ 230,000) and bronze NT 5 million ($133,000). Coaches get NT 3 million ($100,000).

Also, an athlete is given the option to choose lump sum payment or a lifetime pension which is a minimum NT 100,000 ($3,500) a month for the rest of his life.

Athletes who are taken into the national team are trained in the state-of-the art National Training Center in Kaoshiung, complete with facilities and amenities, a complement of national and international coaches and experts in nutrition, sports psychology, physiology and sports medicine. 

While in training, athletes are encouraged to complete their education. They receive tutorial assistance as and when necessary.

“We want to ensure they have other skills to be able to work when they retire,” said Tai. “No Taiwanese parent will want his son or daughter to give up his education just so he could commit to his training without assurance that he would win a medal.”

Another vital component of their athletes welfare program is job opportunity for every retired athlete, either as coach, instructor or in some other capacity related to his degree.

The gold medal hopefuls of Taiwan for the London Games are the mixed team in badminton, the women’s archery team and their crack taekwondo jins – world No. 1 Tseng Li-cheng (57 kg), world No. 2 Yang Shu-Chun (98kg) and world No. 3 Wei Chen-yang (men’s 58 kg).

Other hopefuls are Hsu Shu-ching, Kuo Hsing-chun and Huang, Shih-hsu in women’s weightlifting and Chen, Shih-chie in the men’s section.

Taiwan will also be represented by two each in aquatics and tennis, one each in athletics, cycling, fencing, judo, rowing and sailing, men’s archery and seven others in badminton.