Taiwan may have performed well in martial arts events yesterday, but they lacked luster in others.
Women’s 50m air rifle marksman Chu Hsuan-chieh safely advanced into the final eight in the morning, but had no luck placing into the top three.
The men’s group table tennis walked away with a victory only because Kazakhstan forfeited the game by failing to show up, securing their place in the final eight after beating Croatia and Russia on Monday.
PHOTO: CNA
Table tennis coach Huang Mei-chen said the players had already carefully studied the German and Chinese teams and were gearing up for battle against the two heavyweights.
Wen Chih-hsuan, a Taiwanese men’s singles star player, has been complaining of pain in the foot, but Huang said that with enough therapy Wen should be able to compete and do well in today’s heat against Ukraine.
The women’s table tennis team suffered its third straight setback, losing to Russia in two of the three heats. The team will take on Poland and Ukraine tomorrow but the chance for a medal does not look good.
PHOTO: CNA
Taiwan’s tennis delegation saw multiple eliminations today, with only one advancement — Ho Chiu-mei, who beat Valerie Caillaud of France 6-1, 6-2. The reigning national champion is tapped as the likely candidate for gold in the women’s singles.
At the post-game press conference, Ho said she had a difficult time playing yesterday because she had forgotten her sunglasses and the sun was in her eyes.
“My opponent’s backhand slice was very good and was hard to play because they were low,” she said, adding that she was confident about the coming matches.
Winning, however, doesn’t necessarily run in the family: Ho Chiu-mei’s older sister, Ho Chiu-hsiang, lost 6-2 in both sets to Yachiyo Abe from Japan, eliminating her from the competition.
The sister combo will play doubles against France today.
In men’s tennis singles, Taiwan hopeful Lin Chun-jan was also eliminated after he was annihilated by Australia’s John Lin 6-0, 6-0 in the morning.
He also suffered a setback in the men’s doubles. Lin and partner Chin Wu-lung lost to Japan’s Reiki Kajishita and Tetsuya Matsushita on 1-6, 0-6.
In mixed doubles, Kao Ta-li and his partner Lai Yu-chen qualified to advance when their Chinese opponents Yang Zengbao and Lin Dandan forfeited because of injuries.
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