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Okuni
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Bodybuilding chief and champ jailed
Xinhua
Chan Yun-to
A former chairman of the Hong Kong bodybuilding association and an Asian Games champion were sentenced to jail for a bribery scam. Chan Siu-man, 40, received a jail term of three years while Chan Yun-to, 44 - the men's 75kg bodybuilding champion of the Asian Games - was jailed for 16 months. They were found guilty of a joint charge of conspiracy to offer an advantage to an agent on Tuesday.
Siu-man was convicted of four other charges - two of conspiracy to offer an advantage to an agent and one of conspiracy to defraud and one of fraud. According to details released by the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), Yun-to and two other bodybuilders failed doping tests in Oct 2005 after competing in a championship held in South Korea.
The trio were banned from bodybuilding competitions for some time. Between Jan and Dec 2006, Siu-man - then chairman of Hong Kong China Bodybuilding and Fitness Association - and Yun-to conspired together with another person to offer a bribe of HK$78,000 to Paul Chua, secretary-general of the Asian Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation.
The money was offered as a reward for shortening or lifting the period of suspension imposed on Yun-to, and enabling him to participate in the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. Between Jan 2006 and May 2009, Siu-man conspired together with another suspended athlete and Yun-to to offer a bribe of between HK$100,000 odd and HK$200,000 to Chua for the same reason.
Siu-man also conspired together with a third suspended athlete to offer another bribe of US$10,000 to Chua between May 2006 and Feb 2007 for the same reason. Moreover, between April 2007 and May 2009, Chan Siu-man conspired together with a bodybuilding athlete to defraud the Hong Kong Sports Institute of an elite training grant of a sum amounting to HK$600,000.
