Rule-Making at the Junior Pan American Games: How unchecked power gutted trust in Pan-American Poomsae

What MASTKD warned yesterday has now played out on the mat. At Asunción 2025, Dennis Berdugo, the Director of Sport for the Pan American Taekwondo Union (PATU), amassed extraordinary control over how Poomsae would be run—and, according to coaches, team officials, and event documents reviewed by MASTKD, used that discretion to shape the competition in ways that directly advantaged his own family, with his wife on the chair and two children on the start list.

Vusala Valiyeva, the World Taekwondo (WT) Technical Delegate for the event, is the second key figure in this story. Multiple teams describe a tournament environment in which rules and permissions were applied inconsistently, not only in Poomsae but across the Taekwondo program, culminating in high-stakes controversies that damaged the sport’s credibility.

Event authorities
WT Technical Delegate: Vusala Valiyeva
PATU Director of Sport: Dennis Berdugo

What changed—and why it matters

The qualifying series leading into Asunción 2025 ran under a cut-off competition system: a ranking-driven format that compares all athletes on a global scoreboard and advances the top performers. In Asunción, the final event pivoted to head-to-head brackets, where progression depends on the luck of the draw as much as performance.

Coaches from several delegations told MASTKD the Technical Manual—nominally published months earlier—was adjusted after the qualifiers concluded, once seeding and relative positions were known. They say those adjustments placed Berdugo’s children on the softest possible path—with early match-ups against host-nation entrants who had automatic entry and limited international exposure through the qualifying cycle.

That combination—a rule-maker with family in the field and a final format that deviated from the qualifying standard—is the textbook definition of a conflict of interest. World Taekwondo statutes explicitly forbid officials from using their position to benefit family members; PATU’s principles call for uniform procedures across a competitive cycle.
neither of those principles was upheld here.

A TD who could have stopped it—and didn’t

As WT’s Technical Delegate for the entire Taekwondo program in Asunción, Vusala Valiyeva had both the authority and the obligation to standardize procedures and enforce consistency. Instead, coaches recount on-the-spot permissions and prohibitions in Poomsae—decisions that were not clearly grounded criteria and were sometimes reversed mid-session after protests.

The concerns extended beyond Poomsae. In Kyorugi, the now-notorious match between Ian Romero (PAN) and Juan Gaona (PAR) included a post-fight reversal following an operator scoring error that was not corrected during the round—an approach that contradicts the handling expected at non-G events. That episode, under the same tournament leadership, reinforced an overarching perception: processes were improvised, and rules shifted with the moment.

Coaching access, by discretion—not rule

Teams further describe a pre-approved list of coaches that was not applied consistently. Some accredited coaches were blocked from the chair in certain rounds while others, similarly situated, were allowed through. Only after multiple complaints did the organizers “normalize” access—an implicit admission that discretion, not a published standard, had been driving decisions.

In Poomsae—a fully subjective discipline with no electronic scoring— any of those kind of discretional decisions gives the double of the impact. The presence or absence of a coach influences routine selection, timing management, and the ability to contest judging. When access is inconsistent, results are inevitably questioned.

Why this strikes at the sport’s core

For more than a decade the Olympic movement has pushed combat sports toward objectivity and transparency. Kyorugi modernized—chest and head electronic protectors, instant video review, and so on. Poomsae did not. It remains exposed: judged by panels, prone to perception, and especially vulnerable when one official controls the design, the manual, and the in-venue application while family members compete.

Yesterday, MASTKD detailed the conflict-of-interest structure in “Conflicto de intereses en Juegos Panamericanos ASU 2025: El Caso Dennis Berdugo” and warned that it would shape outcomes. In Asunción, it did.
Read yesterday’s report

Accountability: who bears responsibility

1) Dennis Berdugo — Primary responsibility

Exercised decisive control over the technical framework while immediate family competed in subjective categories.
Shifted the final from a uniform, ranking-cut off competition system to single elimination brackets, after the qualifiers had finished, the outcome went from getting the best performance from all the ranked athletes to depend on who you were going to face.
Held the Technical Manual without effective third-party review, according to multiple organizing-side sources.

2) Vusala Valiyeva — Co-responsibility

As the WT TD for the entire event, allowed inconsistent, ad-hoc decision-making in Poomsae and did not enforce a fixed standard for coaching access and procedural remedies.
Oversaw an event in which a non-G Kyorugi match (Romero–Gaona) was reversed post-fight for a scoring-table error that should have been corrected within the round, setting a damaging precedent for procedural integrity

3) Technical table and officiating structure

Accepted shifting criteria and delivered late corrections that undermined trust in both the Poomsae and Kyorugi programs.

What must happen next

Permanent recusal of Dennis Berdugo from any rule-making, technical or organizational role in Poomsae at the continental level, regardless of whether his children are entered. The bias is structural and cannot be mitigated by case-by-case promises.
Independent audit of Technical Manual’s drafting timeline, change log, and approval pathway—tracing what was altered after the qualifiers and why.
Publish and lock Poomsae formats before the final phase of any cycle; any subsequent change must be vetted by a mixed committee (referees, coaches, athlete reps) and communicated publicly.
Single, public rule for coaching access, with a non-editable roster; any exception must carry an immediate written rationale signed by the TD and the Director of Sport and circulated to all delegations.
Open log of all desk decisions (time-stamped, with signatories and impact on results) for real-time transparency and post-event review.
Assign a WT Technical Delegate with Poomsae expertise for future multi-sport events and retrain operators and panels on error-handling protocols.

The cost of doing nothing

Poomsae seeks a bigger footprint on the multi-sport calendar. But without governance, uniformity, and impartial stewards, the discipline becomes indefensible to fans, stakeholders, and—ultimately—the Olympic movement. What unfolded in Asunción 2025 was not a one-off mishap; it was the foreseeable outcome of placing design and enforcement in the hands of an official with an inherent conflict, and of a technical delegate who did not impose guardrails.

Right of reply

MASTKD+ invites Dennis Berdugo and Vusala Valiyeva to provide their reports, supporting documents, and technical clarifications. Their responses will be published in full or excerpted with equal prominence.