Taiwan bagged four gold medals, five silvers and five bronze at the East Asian Games yesterday after a drought of three days, moving up to fifth place in the standings from seventh place on Wednesday.
Chang Kai-chen beat China’s Zzhang Shuai 4-6, 7-6, 6-2 to win the women’s tennis singles finals and clinch the gold medal.
Taiwan won gold as well as silver in the mixed doubles, where Chuang Chia-jung and Yi Chu-huan defeated their compatriots Hsieh Su-wei and Lee Hsin-han 6-3, 6-7, 7-5.
PHOTO: AFP
Chuang Chia-jung and Hsieh Su-wei also won gold in the women’s doubles tennis, defeating Kim So-jung and Lee Jin-a of South Korea.
Earlier in the day, Yi Chu-huan and Lee Hsin-han had to settle for silver in the men’s doubles after they were defeated by a Chinese pair, Zeng Shaoxuan and Zhang Ze, 4-6, 6-7, (4-7).
In the pool, Taiwan’s Cheng Wan-jung broke the dominance of Japan and China as she came from behind in the final lap to take the women’s 400m individual medley gold in a Games record time of 4 minutes, 40.21 seconds.
PHOTO: AFP
All the swimming golds up to that point at the Games had been claimed by swimmers from China or Japan.
Cheng, 18, who said she had recently thought about quitting swimming altogether, even surprised herself.
“Before the East Asian Games I thought maybe I could win a medal, but I didn’t think about a gold medal,” she said.
PHOTO: AFP
Also yesterday, Huang Ho-hsun finished second in the individual road race for women, winning silver.
In a photo finish, Huang and three others crossed the line together, clocking 2 hours, 43 minutes and 41 seconds, but the gold went to Chinese cyclist Liu Xiaohui.
China yesterday snapped up seven of the 10 track and field gold medals on offer in the first athletics action at the Games.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A sell-out 3,500 crowd saw China comfortably stretch their lead over Japan and South Korea at the top of the medals table, and yet more success later in the swimming saw the Chinese gold medal tally swell past the 50 mark.
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