BASEBALL
Taiwan ranks fourth in world
Taiwan ranked fourth in the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s end-of-year men’s baseball world rankings, which weighed the performance of national teams in sanctioned international competitions over a four-year period. Japan remained at the top of the list released yesterday for the third straight year, followed by the US and South Korea in second and third places respectively. While Taiwan maintained fourth place for a second consecutive year, it did not add much to its cumulative rankings points, with a poor overall performance last year. The national team did not manage a single win at last year’s World Baseball Classic in South Korea and finished 14th out of the 16 participating nations. The women’s national baseball team was ranked sixth worldwide, while the women’s softball team was ranked fifth.
CRICKET
ICC approves Perth Stadium
The International Cricket Council (ICC) yesterday approved the new Perth Stadium to host all international formats of the game, formally lowering the curtain on the city’s venerable WACA Ground. The 60,000-capacity stadium is to host a sold-out one-day international against England on Jan. 28 in the first sporting event held at the state-of-the-art arena. ICC match referee Richie Richardson submitted a gushing report after inspecting the venue. “This is by far the most impressive and well laid out stadium I have ever visited,” he said. “The comprehensive amenities, along with the quality and functionality of the facility, surpasses the required standard to host any international cricket match.”
OLYMPICS
IOC must rule on N Koreans
Figure skaters Ryom Tae-ok and Kim Ju-sik, the only North Koreans to qualify for next month’s Winter Olympics, missed the registration deadline and must now rely on a helping hand from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), officials said on Wednesday. The International Skating Union said that the pair had met “the necessary technical requirements” to take part in the Feb. 9 to Feb. 25 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. “However, the [North Korean] National Olympic Committee has not confirmed the participation of the pair within the set deadline and the available quota place has consequently been transferred to the next in line, Japan,” the union said in a statement. “In the case of a formal ... request for a late entry, the matter would have to be referred to the IOC for a final decision relating to the late entry, as well as the increase of participants in the 2018 Olympic pair skating competition.”
SOCCER
King Kazu renews contract
One of the longest careers in soccer was extended yesterday after 50-year-old striker Kazuyoshi Miura renewed his contract with second-division J-League club Yokohama FC. Miura, who is to turn 51 on Feb. 26, is to enter his 33rd season this year. Miura last year played in 12 league games and scored one goal, breaking his own record as the J-League’s oldest scorer. Miura joined Yokohama FC in 2005 and became the oldest player to appear in a professional match at the age of 50 years and seven days in March last year. Nicknamed “King Kazu,” Miura played for Brazilian club Santos and in Italy with Genoa earlier in his career, and represented Japan’s national team 89 times, scoring 55 goals.
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