Taiwan's men archery team won the silver medal yesterday after being defeated by South Korea by seven points, 244-251, in the finals of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Earlier in the day the team had beaten the US 244-243 to advance to the finals.
The baseball team, however, had little to feel happy about after losing to Japan 4-3 in overtime.
But it was a very different story at the Panathinaiko Stadium, the home of the first modern Games in 1896 and the venue for archery at this year's Olympics.
"We are in excellent condition, and our archers just act consistently according to the tempo set during their practices, and ignore other external factors, even our opponents," said archery team coach Lin Cheng-hsien (林政賢).
To stabilize the athletes' mindset and avoid last-minute collapses, Lin repeatedly reminded his archers to "trust your-self, believe in yourself."
The three young archers, 23-year-old Chen Szu-yuan (陳詩園), 19-year-old Liu Ming-huang (劉明煌) and 17-year-old Wang Cheng-pang (王正邦), did not perform well at the beginning of the match, but suc-ceeded in dealing with the pressure and reviving their fighting spirit.
The crucial point in the competition was in the third round, when the US fell three points behind the Taiwan team. Wang and Liu secured an unassailable lead by scoring 28 points with their last three shots.
Meanwhile, the baseball team played a good game against Japan's professional all-stars, which has been described as the strongest team among the eight teams in competition.
Both Taiwan's starting pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民), who plays on the Yankee's triple A team, and Japanese starter Koji Uehara, who plays for the Tokyo Giants, suppressed batters in the first two innings.
In the third inning, Chen Chin-feng (
Both teams were runless for the next three innings.
Wang gave up four hits in the seventh, including Yoshinobu Takahashi's two-run homer which tied the game. Tsao Chin-hui (曹錦輝), who plays in Colorado Rockies, then replaced Wang on the pitcher's mound and struck out Norihiro Nakamura to end the inning.
Neither team was able to score in the eighth and ninth innings and the game went into overtime.
In the top of the tenth, Cheng Chang-ming (鄭昌明) hit a single off of Japan's closer Hiroki Kuroda and advanced to second base on Chen Chih-yuan's (陳致遠) sacrifice bunt.
But Taiwan failed to capitalize and the inning ended when Peng Cheng-min (彭政閩) struckout.
In the bottom of tenth, Japan got the bases loaded with just one out, and Michihiro Ogasawara hit a flyball to deep left field off closer Yang Chien-fu (
"The whole team performed their best," said head coach Hsu Sheng-min (
With two wins and four losses, Taiwan's only hope of making it into the semifinals is if it beats the Netherlands today and Australia loses its two last games.
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