Moon Dae-sung's IOC membership suspended

By Baek Byung-yeul

Moon Dae-sung

The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) executive board has suspendedMoon Dae-sung, 39, of all activities as an IOC member and IOC Athletes’ Commission member.

According to the IOC’s webpage showing a list of 90 IOC members, Moon’s name is marked with three asterisks as of Wednesday, which means “suspended.”

The IOC said the decision “follows a recommendation from the IOC Ethics Commission, further to the decision by Kookmin University to withdraw Mr. Moon’s degree on the ground of plagiarism.”

“The Ethics Commission acknowledged the seriousness of the damage to the reputation of the Olympic Movement and the need to take the provisional measure to suspend all the rights, prerogatives and functions linked to Mr. Moon Dae-sung’s IOC membership until the Supreme Court of the Republic of Korea has pronounced a final verdict,” the IOC said in a statement.

Moon, a taekwondo gold medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, was granted a doctoral degree at Seoul’s Kookmin University in 2007. He was alleged to have plagiarized his doctorate thesis in 2012. Two years later, the university revoked his degree after determining that he had reproduced parts of a local scholar’s thesis. He soon filed a suit against the university but lost his appeal twice.

Due to the allegations, Moon who held a parliamentary seat to represent a district in the southern port city of Busan, left the ruling Saenuri Party shortly after being elected. He rejoined the party in 2014 and completed his four-year term in May.

Moon was elected as an IOC member in 2008 and his eight-year term will expire after the Rio de Janeiro Olympics along with three other IOC members. As the terms of four members in the IOC Athletes’ Commission are ending, athletes taking part in the Rio Olympics can cast their ballots to name four new IOC members among 23 candidates, including Korea’s former Olympic table tennis champion Ryu Seung-min. The vote began on Sunday and will be held until Aug. 17. The results are set to be announced on Aug. 18 in the Olympic Village in Rio.

While Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, another Korean IOC member, has been hospitalized for years and Moon has been suspended, the Korean delegation to the Rio Olympics, which runs from Aug. 5 to 21 (local time), will participate in the Games without any Korean IOC members.