Team Taiwan aiming for its best-ever performance

Lin will start competition next Wednesday.

Archery

In the archery competition, teenager Yuan Shu-chi (袁淑琪) is also an athlete of world standard. Young but not timid, Yuan won the championship at the Asian Games.

"The more people watch her, the better she performs. This is how she is. In her case, us coaches don't have to worry about stagefright. I believe that in a few years she will grow into one of the world's best archers. She could get to be No. 1 this time around," said Yuan's coach, Tang Chin-lan (湯金蘭).

Weightlifting

Weightlifting, one of the oldest events at the Olympics, is not a phenomenally popular sport in Taiwan, but it has won more medals for the nation than any other sport.

Tsai Wen-yi (蔡溫義), for instance, astounded spectators and experts when he claimed bronze in Los Angeles in 1984. Following that impressive feat, Li Fong-ying (黎鋒英) secured silver for Taiwan in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Anther female athlete, Kuo Yi-hang (郭羿含), won bronze that year.

This year, the most eye-catching weightlifter is 28-year-old Wang Shin-yuan (王信淵), who has 13 years of experience in competition. Ranked fourth in his class at the Sydney Olympics, Wang surged to second place after 2002. Another young athlete, Yang Chin-yi (楊景翊), is ranked third in the world. The two are expected to bring medals home.

"Wang's strongest challengers are Wu Mei-ching (吳美錦) from China and Halil Mutlu from Turkey, one of four men in history to lift three times his bodyweight and a twice-Olympic medalist," said Liu Jung-chang (劉榮昌), head coach of the weightlifting team. "Although Mutlu is a sportsman of tremendous strength, he is 31 now and has been putting on weight. Maybe he has passed his peak. Wang stands a pretty good chance to beat Mutlu."

Both Wang and Yang are in the 56kg category. They compete on Saturday.

Taekwondo

The most anticipated event, taekwondo, will be held from Aug. 26 to Aug. 29.

Taiwan's two male contenders, Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄) and Chu Mu-yen (邱木炎), and two women contenders, Chi Shu-ju (紀淑如) and Chen Shih-hsin (陳詩欣), will compete on Aug. 26 and Aug. 27. Chu and Chen are hopefuls for a medal among the total of 124 competitors.

The 22-year-old Chu excels in the "cyclone style" of consecutive kicking, which has earned him the moniker of "Bruce Lee" from overseas competitors.

"Since last year, Chu has claimed four gold medals in international competition. If Chu stays calm -- as usual -- and doesn't underestimate his competitors, he will enrapture the country by winning the first-ever gold medal for Taiwan in the Olympics," Liu said.

"Taekwondo is the competition where most of our strength lies," said Liou Ching-wen (劉慶文), head coach of the taekwondo team. "We have trained several medalists and earned many trophies. Now we only have one medal missing from our Hall of Fame -- Olympic gold."

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