Olympic gold medalist Lee Yang tipped as Taiwan's first sports minister

奧運金牌得主李洋有望出任台灣首任體育部長

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – When Taiwan launches a Ministry of Sports on Sept. 9, double Olympic gold medalist Lee Yang (李洋) will most likely be sworn in as its first minister, reports said Thursday.

Lee and Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) won the badminton men’s doubles finals at both the 2020 Tokyo and the 2024 Paris Olympics. The government is planning to announce Lee’s appointment on Saturday, the Liberty Times reported.

A government spokesperson did not address the reports directly, but said there would be an announcement at the appropriate time if there was news of Cabinet appointments, per UDN. In the existing Cabinet structure, the Sports Administration is under the Ministry of Education. The government said it had budgeted NT$24.8 billion (US$813.24 million) for the new ministry’s 2026 operations, a record level for sports.

Lee, 30, retired from professional badminton after the 2024 Taipei Open and went on to lecture at National Taiwan Sport University. Other sports personalities named as contenders for the title of minister were incumbent Sports Administration head Cheng Shih-chung (鄭世忠), tennis star Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳), and Olympic weightlifting gold medalist Kuo Hsing-chun (郭婞淳).