Taiwan's medal rush slows to a crawl

Taiwan's medal march at the 14th Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, has slowed to a crawl, with that nation winning one silver and five bronze yesterday.

The silver came in the soft tennis, with the mixed pairing of Fang Tung-hsien (方同賢) and Chou Chiu-ping (周秋萍) losing to South Korea 5-1 in the final.

The five bronzes came in the cycling men's team sprint, two in bowling, one in the skeet women's team shooting event and another in the men's team table tennis.

Taiwan now has five gold medals, eight silvers and 18 bronzes.

More was expected from Taiwan's bowlers in the five-man and five-woman team events, but they never seemed to get going and were bowled over by stronger teams.

Japan won the men's team event, followed by South Korea, with Taiwan only narrowly beating the United Arab Emirates for third place. In the women's draw, Taiwan narrowly lost to out to the Philippines, with the host country rolling to the gold medal.

It was much the same story at Gumjeong Basketball Stadium, where Taiwan took on Japan and lost 87-77 in the quarterfinal of the hoops competition.

It was a particularly inept performance.

Taiwan trailed from the beginning and did not ever look like taking the lead, despite the obvious frailties of the Japan team.

The only player who looked half comfortable some of the time was Chiu Chi-yi (邱啟益), whose shooting figures of 50 percent were second best only because he was asked to throw up three-pointers toward the end of the game.

To fill up the hall hundreds of school girls had been bussed in for the game and screamed hysterically at anything that moved -- including a Kuwaiti official with a long robe and head dress, who went down to talk to another official at the halfway mark. He was clearly bemused.

It was comic-book stuff, but not quality basketball. School boys at the back of the hall began reading picture books about basketball heroes as the game wore on, with some of them falling asleep by the third quarter.

As for the game itself, neither of the teams' players were quick or strong, technically accomplished or particularly athletic.

Many shots failed to even hit the backboard and if they did there was no rebounding to speak of. There was no sweat during the game and no tears at the end, just the occasional flutter of petulance from Japan.

According to coach Lii Yun-kang (李雲光), Taiwan played reasonably well and would improve with time.

"This is a young team which we are building and our aim is the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, so I'm not worried about it," he said.

The problem is the team is not particularly young, with some of them in their mid-20s and the more junior of them not showing any signs of great ability.

With most of Taiwan's best players plying their trade in China or trying their luck in the NBA and not being selected for the country, it could be a fallow period for some time to come for the nation's basketball fans.

In the late night women's soccer match, Taiwan was beaten by North Korea 1-0, ending the day on an appropriate note.