Olympic double gold medalist Hsu Shu-ching (許淑淨) yesterday announced she is retiring from weightlifting and would not compete in the Asian Games in August.
In a Facebook post, the 27-year-old cited long-standing knee problems and injuries sustained during last year’s World Weightlifting Championships as the reasons for her decision, which also meant she was reluctantly giving up her dreams of competing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but would turn her attention to coaching a new generation of athletes.
“I am still recovering from serious injuries sustained last year and cannot undergo training in full. After discussing the matter with my coach, my doctor, the Chinese Taipei Weightlifting Association and leaders in various organizations, I have decided to withdraw from training for the Asian Games in Jakarta and end my career as an athlete,” she said.
Photo: CNA
“Because of the government’s financial support, I will stay in the National Sports Training Center and assist Coach Tsai Wen-yee (蔡溫義) and other coaches in training young weightlifters. I will learn to be a good coach to help train more top athletes for the nation,” she said.
Hsu thanked her coach, the association, her sponsors and other parties for supporting her training so that she could do so well not only in the Olympics, but the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.
Government policy and support from others for weightlifting are crucial for athletes like her, Hsu said.
Hsu won a gold in the 53kg category at the 2012 London Games and the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Games, the first Taiwanese athlete to win two Olympic golds. She was scheduled to compete in the same category in Jakarta.
She said she hoped the public would continue to support her and cheer for the nation’s weightlifters in Jakarta.
Tsai, who won a bronze in the 60kg class in weightlifting at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, told the Central News Agency that Hsu’s retirement comes two years earlier than they had planned.
He and Hsu had originally planned that she would compete in the Tokyo Games, but he would respect her decision even though it was against his wishes, Tsai said.
Hsu tore two ligaments in her right arm during the world championships and underwent surgery after she returned to Taiwan.
Told rehabilitation would take a year, her recovery has not gone as she had expected, Hsu has said previously.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS