Lin Tzu-chi (林子琦) broke two world records to snatch Taiwan’s second gold medal from China’s Deng Wei (鄧薇) in the women’s 63kg at the Asian Games yesterday and warned her rival she could lift even more weight, while Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and Chan Yung-jan (詹詠然) put aside their differences to guarantee Taiwan at least silver in the women’s team tennis.
In another extraordinary afternoon at the Incheon Moonlight Gardens weightlifting arena, four world records were smashed as Lin and Deng fought out a titanic battle.
Lin took the lead with a clean-and-jerk lift of 143kg for a 259kg aggregate that smashed the old world record of 257kg set in 2007.
Photo: Reuters
Deng then strode out and hoisted a world record 144kg clean-and-jerk, to equal Lin’s total and go into gold medal position by virtue of a lower bodyweight.
Lin, with one lift remaining, somehow hauled 145kg above her head to relegate Deng to silver and set more world records for both the clean-and-jerk and the combined (261kg) in the process.
“Next championship, I will be stronger and do even better,” Lin said, looking ahead to November’s world championships in Kazakhstan. “Actually, I knew I could make this weight because I had achieved it in training.”
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Lin, the Asian champion at 58kg last year, had started the competition as favorite along with Deng, the world champion at 58kg last year, despite both being something of an unknown quantity at 63kg after stepping up in weight.
“First, congratulations to Lin for winning gold,” Deng said. “I did well, but it wasn’t my full potential. I wasn’t capable of beating her today. I will be striving to reverse the result in the next championship.”
North Korea’s Jo Pok-hyang, a seasoned 63kg lifter, was expected to challenge the top two, but in her first snatch attempt she dropped the bar weighing 107kg dangerously onto her back, bringing gasps from the stunned audience.
It looked a terrible blow, but she showed amazing grit to emerge again and lift it on her second attempt. However, it was clear she was not 100 percent.
Despite bravely going on to lift 140kg in the second discipline, Jo never threatened the leaders and took the final podium position on a distant 247kg.
In the women’s team tennis, Hsieh and Chan, who rarely play together and had a highly publicized dust-up before the Games, put Taiwan within a match of another gold medal.
Chan earned a point for Taiwan in the opening singles rubber when she defeated Kazakhstan’s Yuliya Putintseva 6-4, 6-1, but the match was evened up when world No. 65 Yaroslava Shvedova topped Hsieh 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) in the second singles rubber.
With the tie in the balance, doubles specialists Hsieh and Chan ousted Putintseva and Shvedova 6-0, 6-2 in the doubles rubber to send Taiwan to the final.
Prior to the Games, Hsieh and Chan had not teamed up in a doubles match since the Federation Cup in 2012 and were considered not to be on the best of terms.
Prior as the Games, Hsieh tried to break the ice by suggesting that Chan team up with her in the women’s doubles to give Taiwan the best chance of a gold medal, but Chan declined, saying she would prefer to play with her sister, Chan Hao-ching, a response that saw Hsieh threaten not to play in the non-team events at the Games. Chan Chin-wei is the other member of the team.
Today, Taiwan face a China team comprised of world No. 43 Zhang Shuai, world No. 80 Zheng Jie, world No. 108 Zheng Saisai and world No. 144 Duan Yingying.
Taiwan are also guaranteed at least a silver medal today in wushu after Kao Yu-chuan won her women’s 60kg sanda semi-final 2-0 against Turkmenistan’s Jennet Aynazarova to set up a final against China’s Wang Cong.
In the archery, Taiwan’s recurve women’s team of Lin Chia-en, Yuan Shu-chi, Le Chien-ying and Yang Nien-hsiu finished third in the ranking round, as did the compound women’s team of Huang I-jou, Chen Li-ju and Wu Ting-ting.
In track cycling, Taiwan’s Wu Po-hung, competing in the men’s omnium, finished fourth in the 1km time trial, third in the 330m flying lap and sixth in the 40km points race.
In the equestrian individual dressage, Taiwan’s Yeh Hsiu-hua, riding Urban Legend, finished in sixth place, as did Lee Chih-kai in the artistic gymnastics men’s individual all-round final.
In the rowing, Taiwan’s men’s double sculls team of Wang Ming-hui and Yu Tsung-wai finished first in the first repechage, as did Taiwan’s Pai Chien-yu, Lin Yu-hsun, Lee Pei-chen and Chiu Pei-yu in the women’s quadruple sculls.
In the swimming, Chinese superstar Sun Yang stormed past his rivals to an emphatic 400m freestyle win as the Games were rocked by their first positive drugs test.
The world and Olympic champion hit back from his shock 200m loss to Kosuke Hagino to dominate the Japanese and South Korea’s Park Tae-hwan, winning comfortably by 1.3 seconds.
Sun roared in celebration at the win, among six for China on the night as they finally hit form in the pool and leapt ahead of Japan 11-7 in the swimming titles tally.
There was controversy elsewhere after it emerged that a soccer player from Tajikistan had become the first athlete at the Games to fail a doping test.
“It’s a confirmed case,” a source said, adding that the as yet unidentified player would be kicked out of tournament.
The Central Asian republic are due to play Iraq in the second round of the men’s soccer tournament tomorrow.
The doping case comes after two incidents of alleged sexual assault at the Games, involving an Iranian soccer official and a member of the Palestine team.
Sun, who blamed a thumb injury for his 200m loss to Hagino, strolled out for the race wearing a pair of gold headphones and he kept his cool when Hagino shot out to an early lead.
The towering Chinese reeled him in by the halfway mark and powered away over the second 200m to take Park’s crown, as he did in the same event at the 2012 Olympics.
Olympic champion Ye Shiwen crushed the competition in the women’s 400m medley, Ning Zetao won the men’s 50m freestyle and Chen Xinyi won the women’s 100m butterfly, before China’s women finished off with 4x200m freestyle gold.
Eighteen-year-old shooting sensation Yang Haoran led a sweep of the men’s 10m air rifle event as the world champion claimed the individual title after helping China to team gold.
Teammate Cao Yifei picked up the silver, conceding the lead to Yang in the last two shots of a well-contested eight-man final.
Bronze went to Abhinav Bindra, India’s first and only individual Olympic gold medalist, who has announced he is retreating from full-time shooting.
“I have been shooting for the last 20 years — there is nothing else I have done all these years — and I know it’s time to rethink my future,” Bindra said.
In squash, celebrated women’s world No. 1 Nicol David fought back from a game down against fellow Malaysian Low Wee Wern to successfully defend her title.
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