Taiwan earned Olympic spots at the Rio de Janeiro Games on Saturday, after Chen Chien-an won a hard-fought match at the table tennis qualifiers in Hong Kong, while in Manila, two taekwondo athletes also booked their places.
Six men’s and women’s singles winners qualified for Rio at the second stage of the Asian qualifying tournament, where the world’s top players, including China’s Ma Long, secured spots at the Olympics earlier this week.
Chen had a strong start to his qualifying match against Thailand’s Tanvirivavechakul Padasak, but blew an early two-game lead. He ultimately won 4-2.
Photo: CNA
“Maybe I put a lot of pressure on myself,” Chen, 24, told reporters after the match. “Of course I’m very happy ... to represent Taiwan in the Olympics.”
Chen was part of the men’s doubles team who claimed a historic first world title at the 2013 Table Tennis World Championships in Paris.
In the Philippines, Liu Wei-ting and Huang Huai-hsuan secured Olympic qualification after defeating their rivals in the semi-finals of their respective weight divisions at the Asian Taekwondo Olympic Qualification Tournament.
Photo: AFP
Liu got past Mahmoud Abdelrahim from Qatar 4-2 in the semi-finals of the under-80kg men’s division at the qualifying tournament, while in the under-49kg women’s category, Huang defeated Bana Daraghmi of Jordan 4-0.
In their finals yesterday, Huang defeated Kazakhstan’s Ainur Yesbergenova, while Nikita Rafalovich of Uzbekistan beat Liu, though the top two from each category were already assured of qualification.
The tournament offered taekwondo athletes of the region their last chance for qualification for Rio.
Ninety-eight athletes from 36 countries participated in the two-day tournament, which concluded yesterday.
Freddie Freeman homered and drove in four runs, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and Roki Sasaki earned his first major league win as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 10-3 on Saturday night for their seventh straight victory. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the series to improve to 5-0 against Atlanta this year. Los Angeles’ three-game sweep at home early in the season left the Braves 0-7. Sasaki allowed three runs and six hits over five innings. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up a home run to Ozzie Albies, but received plenty of offensive support in his
Bayern Munich on Sunday were crowned German champions for the 34th time, giving striker Harry Kane his first major trophy, after second-placed Bayer 04 Leverkusen drew 2-2 at SC Freiburg. Bayern’s 3-3 draw at RB Leipzig on Saturday, when the Bavarians came from two goals down to take the lead before conceding a stoppage-time equalizer, meant defending Bundesliga champions Leverkusen needed to win at Freiburg to delay the title party. Leverkusen were two goals down before scoring twice in the final 10 minutes, but Xabi Alonso’s side could not find a third, as Bayern reclaimed the title at the first attempt after
Shuttler Lin Chun-yi yesterday kept Taiwan on the board as they faced their first major challenge of the group stage after marching into the last eight at the Sudirman Cup Finals in Xiamen, China. Taiwan were losing 3-1 to South Korea as of press time last night, with only the men’s doubles match remaining. Taiwan and four-time champions South Korea have already progressed to the quarter-finals, after Taiwan on Monday blanked the Czech Republic 5-0 without giving up a single game. Before last night’s tie, Taiwan were undefeated in Group B, with a 9-1 match record, ahead of South Korea, who, although also
A man fell from the 6.4m-high Clemente Wall in right field at PNC Park in Pittsburgh during Wednesday night’s game between the Pirates and the Chicago Cubs. Right after Andrew McCutchen hit a two-run double in the seventh inning to put the Pirates ahead 4-3, players began waving frantically for medical personnel and pointing to the man, who had fallen onto the warning track. The fan was tended to for approximately five minutes by members of both the Pirates and Cubs training staffs as well as PNC personnel before being removed from the field on a cart. The team issued a statement shortly
RSS