Taiwan on Friday added a gold and a silver to their medals haul at this year’s Tug-of-War International Federation (TWIF) World Indoor Championships in Ireland.
An all-female team composed of students and alumni of Taipei’s Jingmei Girls’ High School defeated their opponents in 10 matches to take the gold in the 500kg division on Friday.
The women then teamed up with male athletes from Greater Taichung’s Chiao Tai High School and Asia University to compete in the 600kg mixed division, but were beaten in the final match by An Steel of China to take silver.
Photo Courtesy of Jingmei Girls’ High School
On Thursday, the Taiwan men’s under-23 side successfully defended their title in the 600kg division, after winning bronze in the 560-kg class.
The under-23 men’s team was composed of students from National Nantou Senior High School, Mingdao University and National Taiwan University of Physical Education and Sport.
In Thursday’s other action, the nine-member team of students and alumni from Jingmei Girls’ High School were defeated twice in an open event by An Steel, but still added a silver medal to Taiwan’s haul.
The Jingmei Girls lost out to their Chinese rivals in the first round of the women’s 540kg open clubs event, the high school said.
The open event was contested by nine clubs rather than national teams, said Chiang Hsin-liang (江信良), head of academics at Jingmei Girls, a school renowned throughout Taiwan for producing top tug-of-war athletes.
The team included two alumni from the school and seven students who are relatively inexperienced, Chiang said.
In yesterday’s tug-of-war action, Taiwan was to be represented by another team made up entirely of Jingmei Girls alumni in the world championship events.
The defending champions were to battle to retain their 540kg division title for the third time.
Taiwan won the women’s 540kg event at the biennial TWIF World Indoor Championships in 2010 and again in 2012.
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