Michael Phelps blew away the competition in the Olympic pool for the 22nd time, but doping reared its ugly head again yesterday when Chinese swimmer Chen Xinyi was revealed as the first major case of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, while Taiwanese were in action in golf, archery, badminton, tennis and sailing.
Chen’s failed test after narrowly missing a bronze medal in the women’s 100m butterfly was announced as athletics headed into the Olympic spotlight needing an antidote to its own doping scandals.
Phelps was magnificent again in retaining his 200m individual medley title, leaving old rival Ryan Lochte stranded in fifth place. Even second placed Kosuke Hagino was nearly 2 seconds back.
Photo: AFP
Afterward, the 31-year-old wagged four fingers to show his four gold medals so far in Rio. That has taken him to an incredible 22 Olympic titles and 26 medals overall.
“I say this a lot, but every single day I’m living a dream come true,” Phelps said. “As a kid I wanted to do something that no one had ever done before and I’m enjoying it.”
Simone Manuel of the US and Penny Oleksiak of Canada shared a dead-heat victory in the women’s 100m freestyle. Manuel is the first African-American woman to win an individual Olympic swimming gold.
Photo: Reuters
The Chinese Swimming Association (CSA) said that 18-year-old Chen, who won a world championship gold medal last year in the 4x100m medley team, tested positive for the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide after Sunday’s 100m butterfly final, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
Chen came fourth, just 0.09 seconds behind bronze medalist Dana Vollmer of the US.
Diuretics can be used to mask other banned substances.
Photo: EPA
The association said Chen, who was due to take part in 50m freestyle heats yesterday, had asked for a second test on the sample to be carried out and a hearing in the case.
It said it “demanded full cooperation from Chen in the investigation.”
“The CSA resolutely opposes use of banned substances,” it added.
Photo: EPA
The US bolstered their lead in the Olympic medals table finishing Thursday with 16 golds, five ahead of China.
Simone Biles added the women’s all-around gymnastics title to victory in the team event.
Golf started its return performance at the Rio Games.
Australian Marcus Fraser was the early pacesetter with a 63 in the first Olympics round since the 1904 Games. England’s Justin Rose marked the occasion with a hole-in-one.
Taiwan’s representatives were looking to improve in their second rounds, which began just before press time last night.
Pan Cheng-tsung shot a two-under-par 69, including five birdies, for a share of 11th in Thursday’s first round, while veteran Lin Wen-tang did not get into his rhythm, posting a six-over-par 77 to sit at the foot of the table in 60th.
There were mixed results for Taiwan in badminton, with medal hopeful Tai Tzu-ying winning her singles match, but defeat for the men’s doubles team.
Tai sailed on to the next round, taking two straight sets in a 21-11, 21-9 win over Elisabeth Baldauf of Austria.
It was a different story for the men’s duo of Lee Sheng-mu and Tsai Chia-hsin, who were defeated by the Russian pairing of Ivan Sozonov and Vladimir Ivanov 21-11, 22-20.
In table tennis, Taiwan’s women’s team of Chen Shih-yu, Huang Yi-hua and Cheng Yi-ching were to start their group match against Hong Kong today before going on to their singles events.
In windsurfing, Taiwan’s Chang Hao placed 35th in the men’s RS:X preliminary race seven, did not finish race eight and was 31st in race nine.
BASKETBALL
AFP, RIO DE JANEIRO
Spain tipped off in an eerily empty arena due to a bomb scare, but the 2012 silver medalists finally showed up on the court for an all-important first Olympic basketball win on Thursday.
After last-second losses in their first two games, Spain got past Nigeria 96-87 in a match between winless teams, led by 16 points from veteran center Pau Gasol.
In other Group B games, Argentina and Lithuania showed why they will both be tough to beat in the knockout phase, with Lithuania, now 3-0, winning 81-73.
In one of the better-played contests so far, forward Mindaugas Kuzminskas had 23 points on nine-of-13 shooting as the big, quick Lithuanians disappointed a deafening crowd of Argentine fans.
There were virtually no fans on hand as Spain and Nigeria tipped off in the 16,000-capacity venue in Rio’s Olympic Park.
Security forces delayed fans entering to stage an apparent controlled explosion of a suspicious item just outside.
“We heard the explosion. We didn’t know exactly what it was. We just kind of looked around and said: ‘What’s going on?’” Gasol said.
“We thought maybe nobody came to watch the game,” he said.
Spain were yet to play both Argentina and Lithuania.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with