Taiwan’s taekwondo golden couple came up short yesterday at the Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium, although Chu Mu-yen (朱木炎) did manage to win a bronze medal.
This makes him the most decorated Olympian in the country’s history, after he won gold in Athens four years ago in the same 58kg class. Pressure seemed to sap the spirit from Chu and his girlfriend, Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君), who were widely expected to win golds.
Yang, 22, scrapped to a 1-0 victory in her first 49kg fight, in the morning, and dispatched her Iranian opponent 2-0 to reach the semi-final.
But China’s Wu Jingyu (吳靜鈺), her great rival, was just too aggressive and powerful to overcome.
Backed by the home crowd, Wu got off to a good start and gave Yang little chance to recover. It was a reverse of the victory Yang had against Wu in May’s Asian Championship.
Then, in the bronze medal matchup, Daynellis Montejo of Cuba just beat Yang with a winning point in the extra round when it finished 3-3 in the third.
After the bout concluded and the formalities were over, a teary-eyed Yang fled the gymnasium.
Chu, on the other hand, managed to hang tough after losing to Yulis Gabriel Mercedes of the Dominican Republic 3-2 in the quarter-final.
The whole crowd seemed surprised at the loss, but in his bronze medal match Chu fought better, winning convincingly against Thailand’s Chutchawal Khawlaor 4-2.
The mainly Chinese audience called out his name and cheered a pleased-looking Chu.
Both Chu and Yang seemed tight in their key matches. Taiwanese Olympic delegation leader Tsai Szu-chueh (蔡賜爵) said the pressure got to them.
“Chu had a lot of pressure because he was defending his title and there were a lot of expectations on him,” Tsai said. “Today his fighting strategies were too conservative and he did not attack enough.”
Chu said he was also surprised to lose against Mercedes, adding he was a difficult opponent who kept falling back or over when he attacked and this confounded his fight strategy.
Outside the gymnasium it was a lockout for many Taiwanese, who couldn’t get tickets for the contests.
Inside there were scattered Chinese Taipei flags. Patty Tsai (蔡佩娟) and her colleague Yik Puiching (易佩貞) live and work in Beijing and had to make by hand their hats, stickers and banners supporting the nation.
The two advertising film executives said they were disappointed at Taiwan’s poor performance in taekwondo and baseball.
“But we still want to show our care and sincerity. We believe the athletes tried their best. There’s no point being bitter, we must just work harder,” Tsai said.
Tsai Szu-chueh said it was still possible to win two gold medals, to add to the nation’s three bronze, as he fancied Taiwan’s chances in the second round of the taekwondo competition today.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier