Taiwan’s women on Friday faltered in the third round and fell behind the leaders as strong winds at Rio’s Olympic Golf Course wreaked havoc throughout the day and blew away their chances for a top finish.
Candie Kung carded a five-over 76 after six bogeys and one double-bogey to go with three birdies. The result dropped her to a share of 42nd place on a two-under 211 total after three rounds.
Teresa Lu had a better outing, finishing on two-over 73, carding four bogeys and two birdies, leaving her with a share of 23rd place on three-under 210 after the third round.
Photo: AP
Taiwan’s golfers will likely wrap up their Rio Games without a medal, due to their places in the field with one round to go on the par-71 course.
Lu was eight strokes behind leader Inbee Park of South Korea and six strokes behind New Zealand’s Lydia Ko and the US’ Gerina Piller, who were tied for second place.
Already experiencing stiffness in her neck and shoulders the previous day, Kung blamed the unpredictable wind for her drop in form.
“I had to overcome my discomfort, but the wind was too strong and it blew in all directions. I am dizzy from being in this wind all day,” she said.
“There is nothing we can do when we encounter such conditions, we can only count on our luck,” she added.
Lu also pointed to the blustery conditions for a difficult day.
“The wind was incredibly strong today,” she said. “When I teed off, I could feel it blowing on and off. For most of us, hitting par today would count as a good result.”
When Park was on the 16th fairway, only 50 yards from the hole, she likely could not imagine a worse spot to be.
She had already lost a three-shot lead in gusts up to 48kph, and she now faced a shot that would punish anything just a little long or a little left. The safe play was the middle of the green and get out of there with a par.
Park had other ideas.
“Luckily, I had an uphill lie,” she said. “I said: ‘I’m just going to go for this pin.’ I have confidence that I can stop it if I hit the distance. I played aggressive golf there, and it really worked good.”
Starting with that pitch to tap-in range, she birdied two straight holes for a one-under 70 to take a two-shot lead into the final round.
Just as difficult as the wind was seeing Ko — the No. 1 player in women’s golf — right behind her.
Ko made the first hole-in-one of her career as she raced into contention with a 65, closing the gap to two shots. The 19-year-old from New Zealand started the day seven shots behind and now has a solid chance at gold.
“We all know there’s a lot on the line at the end of tomorrow,” Ko said. “I think I’ve done a good job of putting myself in there and still having the chance to be standing on that podium.”
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