By Duncan Mackay

Moon Dae-sung_in_Durban_July_2011May 1 - International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Moon Dae-sung has offered to resign as a professor at a university in Busan after he was implicated in a plagiarism scandal.


The 2004 Olympic taekwondo gold medallist was forced to quit the ruling Saenuri Party having been elected to the South Korean National Assembly earlier this month after he was accused of copying from someone else for his doctoral thesis.

Moon, 35, has now submitted a letter of resignation to Dong-A University.

Moon, who won a seat in a district in the southern port city of Busan in South Korea's General Elections on April 11, is facing national disgrace after Seoul's Kookmin University, from which he earned his doctorate in 2007, ruled that much of his paper matched another person's work for this thesis, entitled "Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching and its effect on taekwondo athletes".

Moon was hired by Dong-A University as an associate professor in taekwondo without a Ph.D. degree in 2005 after winning his gold medal.

Moon shot to stardom when he claimed victory in the in the heavyweight division after knocking out Greece's Alexandros Nikolaidis with a reverse kick.

Dong-A University launched a special committee last week to investigate Moon's plagiarism allegations, it has been revealed, adding that they will also look into allegations that papers for his master's degree were partly copied.

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