Taiwan proved no match for Iran in their second game of the final round, losing a 98-66 decision to the defending champs to drop out of contention for a fifth-place finish in this year’s FIBA Asia Championship in Wuhan, China, yesterday afternoon.
The absence of point guard Lee Hsueh-lin, who was out with a cut above his left eye from Friday night’s game, prompted skipper Chou Jung-san to start reserve Chen Shih-nian, who filled in nicely for Lee with a solid effort off the bench.
However, Chen’s effort was far from sufficient to claim the Islanders victory over favored Iran, who vented their frustration following an upset to Jordan on Friday, which cost them a chance to win their third straight title, by dominating Taiwan in every facet of the game from the get-go, en route to a blowout win.
Photo: AFP
Heading the towering Iran attack was center Hamed Hadadi, whose game-high 21 points and 14 rebounds marked the second straight game that an opposing center had thrashed Taiwan’s interior defense, with Philippines big man Marcus Douthit doing as he pleased in a 37-point outing the night before.
Also starring for Iran were outside threat Hamed Afagh and guard Mahdi Kamrany, who converted 6 of 11 from behind the three-point line and slashed through Taiwan’s defense with several strong drives to the basket, combining for 36 points and keeping Taiwan on their heels the entire game.
For Taiwan, who never looked comfortable running their half-court offense, the bulk of the scoring burden fell on big men Wu Tai-hao and Tseng Wen-ding, the former with 16 points and the latter nailing an unusual 3 of 4 from behind the three-point line in a 13-point effort.
Failure to box out Iran on both ends of the floor also led to a huge disparity in total rebounds as Iran had a lopsided 54-24 advantage, 22 of which came off the offensive glass.
Next up for Taiwan in the battle for a seventh-place finish are Japan, who lost to Lebanon in their second game of the final round last night. Tipoff is scheduled for 1:30pm at the Wuhan Sports Complex.
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