SOCCER
Chen’s Mechelen go in first
Taiwan international Javier Chen’s KV Mechelen went atop the Belgian Jupiler League on Saturday night after a 2-1 victory at OH Leuven, despite being reduced to 10 men at the end of the first half. Alessandro Cordaro opened the scoring for the visitors after eight minutes, but a foul in the penalty area by Kenny van Hoevelen in the 43rd minute gave Leuven a penalty, which Jordan Remacle converted, and saw van Hoevelen given his marching orders. Despite being a man down, Julien Gorius gave Mechelen the lead in the 51st minute and the visitors held on to take home the three points. Mechelen top the table with nine points.
BASEBALL
Taiwan scrape by in U16
A Taiwanese baseball team in the International Baseball Federation’s U16 Baseball World Championship avoided elimination by grabbing their first win in the tournament, beating Brazil 7-6 in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico, on Saturday. Starting pitcher Tu Chia-ming had a solid performance, allowing only five hits and one run over seven innings. Taiwan had a 4-1 lead by the bottom of the seventh, but relievers Huang Yi-hsin and Wang Tse-chun gave up five runs. Taiwan’s lineup earned the close win in the bottom of the ninth thanks to an uncaught third strike, opponent errors, walks and a hit in the final inning.
BASEBALL
Taiwan destroy Aruba
Yang Chin-hao went 4 for 4 with three runs as Taiwan’s Greater Kaohsiung avoided elimination at the Little League World Series with a 20-3 rout of Oranjestad, Aruba, on Saturday. Taiwan pounded out 19 hits. Yang singled to load the bases before scoring on Hsu Chi-ling’s first-inning double. The 12-year-old Yang added a two-RBI double in the second, before making a leaping stab of Albert Pop’s line drive to save an extra-base hit in the third. The game ended after four innings because of the league’s 10-run rule.
BASEBALL
Taiwan lose title at JLBWS
Taiwan failed to defend their championship title at the Junior League Baseball World Series (JLBWS), losing to the US 2-1 in the final in Taylor, Michigan, on Saturday. The team from Shing-Ming Junior High School in Taoyuan earned a spot in the championship after setting an unbeaten record in the international pool to compete against the winner of the US pool — the Palma Ceia team from Florida. Taiwan starter Lin Chen-fei went the distance, striking out six while allowing only four hits. Teammate Ou Chin had a two-out RBI double in the fourth inning to drive in the team’s only run. The US’ Patrick Kiszla hit a two-run homer in the second inning. He also pitched the final two innings in relief, retiring all six batters he faced.
BASEBALL
Taiwan edged at Pony WS
Taiwan lost by a run to Laredo, Texas, in the final of the Pony League World Series in Washington, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, in what would have been their seventh win since 1993. The South Zone champs defeated Taiwan 10-9 with a series of home runs and hits from the fourth inning onward. The team of 13 and 14-year-olds from New Taipei City led the game 5-1 in the third inning. Although they managed to score another four runs in the sixth and seventh innings, the team could not hold on. Despite the team’s loss, rightfielder Tsai Chen-yu was named the top runner with the most stolen bases in this year’s tournament, while third baseman Wang Ku-fan was named best batter, smacking six hits in the championship game.
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