Taiwan battles to 55kg jujitsu silver

Li Ching-yi was the only medalist for Team Taiwan yesterday after winning the nation’s second silver medal in two days in the World Games jujitsu competition.

Up against the experienced Annabelle Reydy of France in the 55kg fighting final, Li started slowly and was 5-0 down within a few seconds as Reyde connected with a series of attacking punches.

Li never recovered and — despite encouragement from the sizable crowd — was overwhelmed as Reydy had her pinned down twice for ippons, finishing the three-minute bout with a disappointing 16-3 defeat.

Aizhan Kukuzova of Kazakhstan, who Li had beaten in the semi-final, claimed bronze after Poland’s Martyna Bieronska was disqualified for persistently backing off, despite leading 20-11 at the time.

Earlier in the day, Taiwan’s Wu Chia-luan missed out on a bronze medal chance after losing in the men’s 77kg repechage semi-final to Percy Kunsa of France. Kunsa later went on to take the bronze.

The silver took Taiwan’s overall medal count to five gold, six silver and three bronze.

The concluding day of the artistic roller sports competition at the I-Shou University Gymnasium saw Taiwan miss out on numerous medal opportunities, with Wang Hsiao-chu finishing just out of the medals in the women’s freeskating long program. Wang was fourth, with Italy’s Tanja Romano taking gold. Yeh Chia-chen also failed in his medal quest, coming seventh out of eight in the men’s event.

Team dance freedance couple Lu Yi-an and Yang Jia-shiang, meanwhile, also missed out on a medal after finishing sixth out of six.

Pairs long program duo Chien Chia-sheng and Wang Szu-yu also took the wooden spoon in their final, scoring just 284.3 compared with the gold medal score of 390.1 by Italy’s Matteo Guarise and Sara Venerucci.

On the first day of billiards at the Martial Arts Stadium, Taiwan’s Lin Shu-hung advanced to the last eight of men’s snooker after beating South Africa’s Francois Ellis 3-0, while in carom, Yuan Yung-kuo triumphed in his round of 16 match against Egypt’s Sameh Sidom.

The final action of the night saw local favorite Chang Shu-han also go through to the round of eight after beating Japan’s Oi Yukiko nine games to five in the women’s nine-ball pool.

Also yesterday, the final day of boules sports saw Tsao Chia-hui finish in fourth place in the final of the Lyonnaise precision throw, while in the Petanque, Chen Hung-wen and Sun Chaia-yi lost 13-2 to the Thai pairing, missing out on a bronze.

In the Lyonnaise shuttle throw, Taiwan’s Huang Yu-ju also missed out on a bronze after losing to Italy’s Chiara Soligon.

Meanwhile, in the ten pin bowling women’s singles, local hope Wang Yu-ling was knocked out in the final qualifying stage after finishing in seventh position, scoring 2,042, some 87 points short of a semi-final spot.

At Lotus Pond on the first day of waterskiing at Lotus Pond, Taiwan’s Liao Chun-yi finished last in the women’s barefoot slalom preliminary. Also last were Lin Hao-ting and Kan Chun-yu, who failed to make the grade in their respective wakeboard qualifiers.

In related news, the 2013 World Games will be held in Cali, Colombia, the head of the International World Games Association (IWGA) announced on Tuesday.

“The Executive Committee of the IWGA has decided to grant the hosting of the 9th World Games to Cali, a city with 2 million people in south Colombia,” IWGA president Ron Froehlich told a news conference in Kaohsiung.