SEOUL, South Korea (AP) A former World Taekwondo Federation vice chairman denied a report that he had pressured referees to help South Korean taekwondo athletes at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

U.S. Olympic Committee president Marty Mankamyer said Monday that she had asked the International Olympic Committee to look into possible judging improprieties reported by a South Korean magazine in April.

The Shindonga magazine quoted Lee Chong-woo as saying that he coerced referees to favor South Koreans at the 2000 Olympics, using his former authority to assign referees to matches.

"None of it is true," Lee said Tuesday. Lee, who resigned from the Seoul-based taekwondo body in November 2001, was in charge of technical issues of the sport at the Sydney Games.

Lee said the Shindonga reporter, Yook Sung-chul, had apologized to him several times for the article. Yook declined to comment on Lee's allegations that the article was inaccurate.

Shindonga quoted Lee as saying unfair judging practices were widespread and that he once fired a referee for penalizing a South Korean female player, who then lost her match.

"For good overall results, you must take care of it from the preliminaries. It's killing the powerful opponents earlier on. We don't kill (the players), the referees do," Shindonga quoted Lee as saying.

"The results can change depending on referees," Lee, who is also a vice president at the World Taekwondo Headquarters in Seoul, was quoted as saying.

The headquarters promotes the sport in South Korea, and is separate from the federation.

Under a quota system, South Korea was allowed to compete in only four of the eight taekwondo weights at the Sydney Olympics. It won three gold medals and one silver.

The biggest judging scandal in Olympic history occurred earlier this year at the Salt Lake City Games in an alleged vote-swapping deal between judges.

Russian skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze won the Olympic pairs competition, then had to share that title with a Canadian pair.

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