( L - R ) Peter Lue, Mike Fennell - File

Master Peter Lue, the most senior tae kwon do practitioner in the English-speaking Caribbean, yesterday became the latest martial arts expert to hit out against Mike Fennell, chairman of the selection panel of the national Sportsman and Woman awards.

Lue, a 38-year martial-arts veteran and International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) master, said Fennell was 'talking politics' when the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) president recently questioned the Jamaica Taekwondo Association's (JTA) credentials.

"What he is saying is ITF/JTA taekwondo is not aligned to the Olympic movement. If that is so, then cricketers or netballers should not be nominated, any year, as those are not Olympic sports," Lue noted.

Fennell had sought to justify JTA fighter Nicholas Dusard's exclusion from the list of male nominees by referring to the Olympics-skewed criteria for nomination, adding, "I don't know about that body. It is not a recognised body. I don't know who they are affiliated to."

Fennell named the Olympic-aligned Jamaica Taekwondo Federation (JTF) as "the official federation for tae kwon do in Jamaica".

"They are the body affiliated to the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), which is recognised internationally and by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)," he stated.

However, Lue said the JOA president ought to do some background checks on the JTF and its level of activity, locally and internationally.

"Mr Fennell is talking politics. If you look at the record of the ITF and JTF, it speaks for itself. We teach tae kwon do in high schools and at the University of Technology, in addition to operating multiple gyms. I can't tell where the WTF has a resident gym.

"The WTF is not popular in Jamaica. If you're going to use records, they have nothing to show. People don't even know them," Lue added.

Lue said tae kwon do and Olympics politics go way beyond Jamaica's shores and should not be used to exclude fighters from national honours.

"This politics started back in Korea in the 1960s when one of the founders of the ITF, General Choi, the original tae kwon do, had to flee the country and moved the body with him to Canada.

"The Korean government started the WTF in 1973 and the sport became an Olympic demonstration event when that country hosted the Olympics in 1988," Lue explained.

The tae kwon do master said both ITF and WTF were actively involved in talks of a merger ahead of the 1988 Olympics, but that fell through and "the WTF got the whole pie" by Korea being host country and the WTF became aligned to the Olympics thereafter.