■ Local
Whales snatch victory
The China Trust Whales took a 6-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth against the Brother Elephants and escaped with a 6-5 victory in a nail-biter last night in Hsinchu. After Tuesday's 17-5 blowout victory by the Whales, fans were treated to a thriller that went down to the wire. Whale ace closer Kuo-Lee Chien-fu, (郭李建夫) a silver medalist from Taiwan's 1992 Barcelona Olympic baseball team, got the final out to seal the victory for his team. The win clinched the series for the Whales against the defending champions and temporarily avenged last season's championship-series loss suffered by the Whales against the Elephants. Whales outfielder Wang Chen-hao's (王承浩) solo homer on the top of the eighth proved to be the difference for his team in the game.
■ Soccer
War upsets youth cup
Soccer's world ruling body will discuss postponing the World Youth Championship in the United Arab Emirates when it meets later this week, as war in Iraq looms. The matter will be a priority during the FIFA executive committee meeting today and tomorrow at the organization's headquarters on the shores of Lake Zurich. Many competing countries are worried about traveling to the United Arab Emirates when war in the Middle East appears imminent.
■ Awards
McEnroe joins legends
John McEnroe was inducted into the Laureus World Sports Academy on Tuesday, joining Pele, Boris Becker and more than three dozen other elite athletes. The academy promotes sport to improve conditions for young people around the world. At a small ceremony, McEnroe referred to his admiration for former South African president and Nobel Peace laureate Nelson Mandela.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed