The nation's men's and women's archery teams had a good day yesterday, with the men taking a silver medal and the women bronze. The men's team lost to South Korea in the finals after beating Kazakhstan and India, while the women defeated North Korea for bronze after being knocked out of gold medal contention in the semi-finals by South Korea.
The softball team had another tight match with North Korea yesterday, surviving a late seventh-inning rally by the opposition to win 2-1. Taiwanese batters had eight hits but had managed only two runs and committed two errors. Taiwanese starter Lin Shu-hua fell just one out shy of a complete game when she needed help from Wu Chia-yen to get the final out. With the win Taiwan raises its record to 3-2 and earns the right to play a finals match against China tomorrow, the winner of which will play Japan in the grand final.
Meanwhile, Hsieh Cheng-kang defeated Malaysia's Puvaneswaran Ramasamy late on Tuesday to win Taiwan's ninth gold medal in the men's 55kg kumite karate division. Hsieh made short work of his first three opponents, beating competitors from Syria, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan 3-1, 5-1 and 5-1. In the finals, Hsieh took a conservative approach, waiting for his opponent to strike and then counter attacking. The match remained scoreless until there were just over two minutes remaining, when Hsieh took a 1-0 lead with a punch to Ramasamy's torso, then landed two more to extend his lead to 3-0. Then with just seconds left on the clock, Ramasamy landed a head punch to narrow the score to 3-2, but that was all he would get as Hsieh was able to hold him off until the end of the match.
PHOTO: AFP
The women's volleyball team also had a good day, beating Thailand in just three sets to take home the bronze medal. The match started close, with Taiwan winning the first set by just two points 25-23 and the second 25-21. But the Thai team didn't have much fight left by the third set, giving Taiwan an easy 25-14 victory. The win marked the conclusion of an up and down tournament for Taiwan, which finishes with a 3-3 record. It was also the first women's volleyball medal ever for Taiwan at the Asian Games.
PHOTO: AP
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