Yesterday proved to be a golden day for Taiwan’s Asian Games team in Jakarta, as the gold medals were won by the men’s dragon boat team, the men’s recurve team in archery, the compound mixed team in archery and in the women’s under-50kg karate event.
Silver medals were won by the women’s recurve team, while a bronze was won in the men’s under-84kg category karate, while team members advanced in women’s badminton singles and men’s basketball.
However, it is the 16-member dragon boat team who will see the biggest rewards for their performances in Jakarta — the Regulations Governing the Issuance of Guo Guang Athletic Medals and Scholarships (國光體育獎章及獎助學金頒發辦法) stipulate that competitors winning gold, silver and bronze at the Asian Games can receive NT$3 million (US$97,491), NT$1.5 million and NT$900,000 respectively.
Photo: AFP
The team won yesterday’s 1,000m race with a time 4 minutes, 31.185 seconds, after taking the gold on Sunday in the 500m race and placing second on Saturday in the 200m race.
For the two golds and one silver, each member of the team is set to receive a total of NT$7.5 million, taking the total for team to NT$120 million, a record haul for a single sport.
Meanwhile, Gu Shiau-shuang (谷筱霜) overcame Uzbek Bakhriniso Babaeva 3-2 to take the gold in the final of the women’s under-50kg karate.
Photo: Reuters
In the mixed team compound archery final, Chen Yi-hsuan (陳怡瑄) and Pan Yu-pin (潘宇平) edged South Korea 151-150 for the gold, while the Iran pair took the bronze.
The men’s recurve team defeated South Korea 5-3 to take their first gold at the Games. China beat Mongolia to take the bronze.
However, the women’s recurve team failed to dislodge defending champions South Korea, finishing 3-5 in the final and taking silver, while Japan beat China to take the bronze.
Photo: AP
Hsu Wei-chun (徐瑋駿) shared the bronze medal with Alnajjar Bashar of Jordan in the men’s under-75kg karate event after beating Pongsai Teerawat of Thailand, while Wu Chun-wei (吳峻維) beat Akhatov Shakhboz of Uzbekiztan to take the bronze in the men’s 84kg karate.
In other action, Taiwan’s badminton world No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) advanced to the women’s singles final after beating Saina Nehwal of India in the semi-finals.
Tai won the hard-fought 21-17, 21-14 match against the world No. 10 and Olympic medalist — for the 10th straight time — in 36 minutes.
Photo: Reuters
This is the first time that a Taiwanese women’s singles shuttler has headed for a gold medal showdown at any Asian Games.
The men’s basketball team defeated Syria in theirquarter-final match, 82-75.
In other news, the men’s baseball team beat Hong Kong 16-1, a day after beating long-time rival South Korea 2-1, the first time in 12 years that the Taiwan men’s team have beaten South Korean at the Asian Games.
Sunday’s game was described as David-Goliath battle, because the South Koreans are all professionals while Taiwan’s team has just seven professionals.
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