Held to nine meager points in the first quarter, Taiwan Team A fell into a hole much too deep to escape as they suffered a 111-64 defeat to two-time defending champions Jordan in the Jones Cup tournament at the Taipei County Sinjhuang Gymnasium on Tuesday night.
The loss ended the hosts’ three-game winning streak and dropped them out of a three-way tie with Jordan and South Korea, both of which remained unbeaten at 3-0 in the eight-game tournament.
Team A played nothing like a national team, shooting a miserable 1-for-11 from behind the three-point line in the opening quarter to find themselves down 29-9.
They did not fare any better in the second quarter as Jordan erupted for 32 points, widening the gap to 61-28.
Taiwan finally found their shooting range in an evenly fought third quarter with four threes, but the Jordanians maintained a comfortable 30-plus point cushion on their way to the biggest margin of victory in the tournament thus far.
IRAN 88, TAIWAN TEAM B 79
Taiwan Team B fell short to perennial powerhouse Iran in an 88-79 loss earlier on Tuesday, remaining winless in the four contests they have played.
Although the final score favored the Iranians — who had the services of current NBA player Hamed Ehadadi — it was a moral victory for the young Taiwanese, who made a tenacious effort against one of Asia’s top teams for a respectable single-digit loss.
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
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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