Taiwan weightlifter Chen Shih-chien, the nation’s flagbearer at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, claimed the bronze medal in the men’s over-105kg category at the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, yesterday to increase the nation’s medal haul to 15.
Chen lifted 191kg in the snatch and 233kg in the clean and jerk to post 424kg, just a kilogram behind silver medalist Ai Yunan of China.
Iraq’s Behdad Salimikordasiabi won the gold after lifting a combined total of 465kg to break the Games record.
Photo: Reuters
Taiwan’s golfers opened up a seven-shot lead in the men’s team competition after the completion of the second round.
Pan Cheng-tsung, Yu Chun-an, Kao Teng and Wang Wei-lun posted a team total of 408, seven shots ahead of South Korea in second place and nine shots ahead of third-placed Thailand.
In the men’s individual competition, Pan was second on nine-under 135, two shots behind leader Youm Eun-ho of South Korea, while Yu was tied for third a shot further back and Kao was in fifth on seven-under 137.
Pan began playing golf at the age of five and in 2007, at the age of 15, he left his parents and five siblings to further his golf career in the US, despite not speaking any English.
He settled in Florida and attended the prestigious Leadbetter Golf Academy in Bradenton.
Last year, he was ranked the No. 1 amateur golfer in the world by World Amateur Golf Ranking, the first Taiwanese golfer to attain the ranking.
In the archery recurve men’s individual quarter-finals, Taiwan’s Kuo Cheng-wei advanced to the semi-finals after a 6-4 victory over North Korea’s Pak Yong-won after shooting eight bull’s-eyes.
In the men’s volleyball, Taiwan edged Kazakhstan 3-2 in their final match in Group A following two 3-0 defeats, while the men’s handball team fell to a 29-19 loss to Qatar.
In the quarter-finals of the women’s soccer competition, Taiwan lost 1-0 to the hosts. South Korea had 21 shots, 10 on target, but Taiwan managed to hold out until Jeon Gaeu scored for the hosts in the 73rd minute.
In the third round of the men’s singles tennis, top seed Lu Yen-hsun defeated Thailand’s Pruchya Isarow 6-0, 6-3 in 50 minutes, while fellow Taiwanese Wang Yeu-tzuoo beat Uzbekistan’s Sanjar Fayziev 6-1, 6-1 in 1 hour, 5 minutes.
In the second round of the men’s doubles, Wang and Lee Hsin-han defeated Thai duo Isarow and Nuttanon Kadchapanan 6-2, 6-2, while fellow Taiwanese pairing Chen Ti and Peng Hsien-yin beat Indonesian duo Chris Rungkat and Elbert Sie 6-4, 6-4.
In the third round of the women’s singles, Taiwan’s Hsu Chieh-yu defeated Nigina Abduraimova of Uzbekistan 6-4, 7-6 (7/4), but fellow Taiwanese Lee Pei-chi exited after a 6-2, 6-1 loss to Japan’s Misa Eguchi.
In the second round of the women’s doubles, Taiwanese gold medalists Hsieh Su-wei and Chan Chin-wei defeated Chinese duo Wang Qiang and Liu Fangzhou 6-2, 6-0 in 42 minutes.
There were mixed results for Taiwan in the first round of the mixed doubles, with Peng and Chan Hao-ching cruising past Eudice Chong and Yeung Pak-long of Hong Kong 6-2, 6-1 in 52 minutes, while Lu and Hsieh exited after they were beaten 6-2, 4-6, 10-6 by South Korean pairing Han Nai-ae and Kim Cheong-eui.
Meanwhile, superheavyweight Olympic champion Zhou Lulu hoisted the largest single weight ever by a woman to give China a seventh Asian Games weightlifting gold — and then said the lift was only “so-so.”
She broke Russian Tatiana Kashrina’s world record in the clean and jerk by 2kg with 192kg and equaled the Russian’s combined record of 334kg, both set last year. Zhou put on a one-woman show in the over-75 class, eclipsing her London 2012 total of 333kg, which was also a world record at the time.
She then said she could have done better.
“I’m not satisfied with that. It was only so-so,” she told reporters after lifting 142kg in the first discipline, 4kg below her Olympic performance. “I’m disappointed that I didn’t perform well in the snatch.”
“I just feel normal. There’s nothing special about breaking the world record,” she said.
Zhou, who weighs in at a mammoth 140kg, saw off second-placed Mariya Grabovetskaya of Kazakhstan and bronze medalist Thailand’s Chitchanok Pulsabsakul with ease at Incheon’s Moonlight Festival Gardens.
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
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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