"Oversight": Incheon Sports Council's Error Prevents Athletes from National Games... Korean Olympic Committee Says Relief Is Difficult, Keeps Comments to Itself

*This content was translated by AI.

An absurd incident occurred where female soft tennis (table tennis) athletes from Incheon could not participate in the 107th National Games due to a registration error by the Incheon City Sports Council. While athletes who committed no wrongdoing lost their chance to compete because of an administrative mistake, the Korean Olympic Committee also stated that relief is difficult under current regulations.

A Korean Olympic Committee official told StarNews on August 31, "It's regrettable, but it will be difficult for Incheon table tennis athletes to participate in the National Games."

The official explained that since athlete registration periods and procedures are set in advance and issues of fairness with other provinces and cities must be considered, it is difficult to make exceptions to allow specific teams to register after the deadline.

Previously, due to an administrative error by a staff member at the Incheon City Sports Council, female table tennis industrial team athletes selected as representatives for Incheon in the 107th National Games scheduled for October in Jeju lost their eligibility to compete.

In table tennis, teams must register six athletes with the Korean Olympic Committee to be eligible not only for team events but also for individual singles and doubles competitions.

However, after one of the original six registered athletes was deleted without a new athlete being added, the system showed only five registered athletes from Incheon. Consequently, they failed to meet the requirement of registering six athletes and could not participate in either team or individual events.

The problem arose during the process of replacing athletes.

A staff member at the Incheon City Sports Council, who received a request from the table tennis team coach to change participating athletes, deleted one of the six originally registered athletes from the computer system.

Although new athletes needed to be registered afterward, the staff failed to input the changes by the Korean Olympic Committee's registration deadline at 3 p.m. on the 13th.

The staff member reportedly explained that they "oversaw" the missed deadline.

The cost of a simple administrative error was high. All female table tennis athletes from Incheon were unable to compete in the National Games.

Even more absurdly, the Incheon City Sports Council did not realize this fact immediately.

Although the athlete registration deadline was on the 13th, it was reported that the Incheon City Sports Council only discovered the issue after the draw schedule was released on the evening of the 19th, six days later.

A Korean Olympic Committee official stated, "It is very regrettable, but it will be difficult for Incheon table tennis athletes to participate in the National Games. Since this is a national tournament, the rules apply equally to all teams. The same applies to international competitions; the principle is that if registration is not completed within the application period, participation is not allowed."

The official further added, "This is an obvious mistake by the Incheon City Sports Council with no room for excuses."

In fact, those who suffered the greatest damage were the athletes who committed no wrongdoing.

The athletes had trained for a long time aiming for the National Games but were denied even the opportunity to showcase their skills on the competition floor. They lost their chance to compete in the National Games, which was a major goal for the year, due to an administrative staff member's error rather than any issue with individual performance or eligibility.

Seo Gyu-jae, coach of the Incheon table tennis team who led the athletes, could not hide his mixed feelings. When asked by StarNews, Coach Seo said, "I have nothing specific to say at this moment," and added, "My mood is not good," keeping his comments brief.

The problem did not end with table tennis.

An administrative error also occurred during the athlete registration change process in the girls' under-18 golf category.

Although the Incheon Golf Association requested a change of athletes, the City Sports Council failed to process it in time, resulting in the disqualification of higher-ranked athletes who were originally scheduled to compete and their replacement by lower-ranked athletes.

Ultimately, athletes from different sports lost their chance to participate in the National Games not due to performance issues but because of administrative processing errors.

The Incheon City Sports Council took late follow-up measures. They decided to transfer relevant staff members effective September 1 and convene an personnel committee to initiate disciplinary procedures.

They also plan to implement preventive measures, such as establishing a process to verify athlete registration and participation status multiple times.

Lee Gyu-saeng, president of the Incheon City Sports Council, stated, "I fully recognize my responsibility" and added, "We will create preventive measures to ensure such incidents do not happen again."

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*This content was translated by AI.