Team Taiwan earned the country two gold medals last night, as the nation's Taekwondo fighters kicked their way into athletic history.
Men's Taekwondo fighter Chu Mu-yen (
Chu, 22-years-old and 173cm tall, and Chen, 26-years-old and 166cm tall, reached the finals after beating their opponents during the first two rounds.
In the semifinals, Chen handily defeated Canada's Ivett Gonda with a score of 3-2 and qualified to fight against Cuba's Yanelis Yuliet Labrada Diaz in the finals, who she also defeated.
When the referee raised Chen's hand to announce her victory, hundreds of Taiwanese people who were attending the competition waved flags and screamed with excitement.
Chu defeated Egyptian athlete Tamer Bayoumi to get a shot at the gold medal. He faced Oscar Francisco Salazar Blanco of Mexico.
Chen easily defeated Nepal's Sangina Baidya with a score 4-0 during the preliminary round. Chen was faster than her opponent, and she continually used her left leg for simple kicks without a lot of window dressing.
Meanwhile, during the quarterfinal, Chen faced a tough challenge from Columbia's Gladys Alicia Mora-Romero, and the athletes reached a draw after two rounds with 0-0.
Though Chen displayed a more positive performance, adopting different movements of roundhouse technical kicks, and left and right wing attacks, yet Mora-Romero reacted with a cautious tactic to ignore Chen's lure movements.
Just like those previous international Taekwondo session, protests against the referees' unfairness from losers interfered the games. Thailand and Austria both protested to the Olympic Organization Committee. Thailand's coach even temporarily stood in the ring and refused to leave while the second quarterfinal was in progress.
In the Men's under-58kg, Chu who is nicknamed the "warlord" of Taiwan, knocked out his first opponent, Libya's Ezedin Salem, within one minute at the preliminary round.
Chu scored four points with three offensive kicks, including a direct attack on Salem's face, bloodying his nose.
Egypt's Tamer Bayoumi and Greece's Michalis Mouroutsos both smoothly crushed their initial opponents in the preliminary round, to contend with each other in the quarterfinal.
Though thousands of Greek supporters cheered on Mouroutsos, who became a Greek national hero after winning the 2000 Sydney Olympic Taekwondo gold medal, the Egyptian athlete demonstrated his skills to win the match with a score of 10-3.
Chu proved his reputation by beating Spain's Juan Ramos in the quarterfinal match 9-1.
Chu's coach Liou Ching-wen (
"The only factor we were worrying about was an unfair judgment by the referee," Liou said.
He stressed that if any "particular" referee had tried to "manipulate" the results of the competition, he would have launched a strong protest in front of the international media.
POLITICAL AGENDA: Beijing’s cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival events are part of a ‘cultural united front’ aimed at promoting unification with Taiwan, academics said Local authorities in China have been inviting Taiwanese to participate in cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations centered around ideals of “family and nation,” a move Taiwanese academics said politicizes the holiday to promote the idea of “one family” across the Taiwan Strait. Sources said that China’s Fujian Provincial Government is organizing about 20 cross-strait-themed events in cities including Quanzhou, Nanping, Sanming and Zhangzhou. In Zhangzhou, a festival scheduled for Wednesday is to showcase Minnan-language songs and budaixi (布袋戲) glove puppetry to highlight cultural similarities between Taiwan and the region. Elsewhere, Jiangsu Province is hosting more than 10 similar celebrations in Taizhou, Changzhou, Suzhou,
The Republic of China (ROC) is celebrating its 114th Double Ten National Day today, featuring military parades and a variety of performances and speeches in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei. The Taiwan Taiko Association opened the celebrations with a 100-drummer performance, including young percussionists. As per tradition, an air force Mirage 2000 fighter jet flew over the Presidential Office as a part of the performance. The Honor Guards of the ROC and its marching band also heralded in a military parade. Students from Taichung's Shin Min High School then followed with a colorful performance using floral imagery to represent Taiwan's alternate name
COGNITIVE WARFARE: Chinese fishing boats transmitting fake identification signals are meant to test Taiwan’s responses to different kinds of perceived incursions, a report said Chinese vessels are transmitting fake signals in Taiwan’s waters as a form of cognitive warfare, testing Taipei’s responses to various types of incursions, a report by the Institute for the Study of War said on Friday. Several Chinese fishing vessels transmitted fake automatic identification system (AIS) signals in Taiwan’s waters last month, with one mimicking a Russian warship and another impersonating a Chinese law enforcement vessel, the report said. Citing data from Starboard Maritime Intelligence, the report said that throughout August and last month, the Chinese fishing boat Minshiyu 06718 (閩獅漁06718) sailed through the Taiwan Strait while intermittently transmitting its own AIS
CHINESE INFILTRATION: Medical logistics is a lifeline during wartime and the reported CCP links of a major logistics company present a national security threat, an expert said The government would bolster its security check system to prevent China from infiltrating the nation’s medical cold chain, a national security official said yesterday. The official, who wished to stay anonymous, made the remarks after the Chinese-language magazine Mirror Media (鏡周刊) reported that Pharma Logistics (嘉里醫藥物流) is in charge of the medical logistics of about half of the nation’s major hospitals, including National Taiwan University Hospital and Taipei Veterans General Hospital. The company’s parent, Kerry TJ Logistics Co (嘉里大榮物流), is associated with the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the
RSS