Taiwan’s Su Po-ya yesterday won a gold medal — Taiwan’s third — in the Asian Games under-53kg women’s taekwondo in a stunning defeat of the top-ranked Asian in the category.
Su overwhelmed world No. 10 and Asian No. 1 Ha Min-ah of South Korea with a flurry of punches and kicks to the body to prevail 29-10 in the final at the Jakarta Convention Center Plenary Hall.
Taiwan’s shooter Yang Kung-pi yesterday won a gold medal — Taiwan’s second at the Games — in the men’s trap shooting event after nearly being eliminated in the competition’s qualifying round. Yang tied the world record by hitting 48 of his 50 targets to grab gold, beating Indian Lakshay.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Lakshay hit 43 of his 50 targets, while Yang also defeated South Korea’s Ahn Dae-myong, who connected with 30 of 40 targets.
The 20-year-old was in sixth after Sunday’s qualifying rounds and in the second qualifying round earlier yesterday secured the sixth and last spot in the final by a single shot.
Taiwan’s shooter Lu Shao-chuan won a bronze medal in the men’s 10-meter air rifle final, his second medal of the games.
Lu bagged the bronze with a score of 226.8, while China’s shooter Yang Haoran defended his Asian Games title with a score of 249.1, followed by Indian shooter Deepak Kumar, who finished with a total score of 247.7.
Taiwan’s Chiang Sheng-shan yesterday won a silver medal in the men’s mountain bike downhill final.
Chiang bagged the silver with a time of 2 minutes, 18.184 seconds, behind Indonesia’s gold-medal winner Khoiful Mukhib by just 1.497 seconds. Chiang was placed fourth in the preliminary round, with 2:22.442 to advance to the final.
Despite the presence of world No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying, Taiwan were ousted by Thailand in the quarter-finals of the women’s badminton event.
Thailand topped Taiwan 3-0 in the women’s team competition, which features a best-of-five format, with three singles and two doubles matches.
Tai and her old nemesis Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand battled for the first point, and Tai seemed poised to seize the first game in their match by taking a 19-17 lead. However, the Thai rallied to take the game 22-20. Although she lost a tight second game, she blew past Tai in the third game to win 22-20, 19-21, 21-13.
Taiwan’s first doubles team, Wu Ti-jung and Hsu Ya-ching, then lost the second point to their Thai opponents in another tight match 22-20, 19-21, 21-13. In the second singles match, world No. 11 Nitchaon Jindapol overcame Taiwan’s Pai Yu-po 21-18, 21-16 to complete the 3-0 whitewash.
In men’s basketball yesterday, Taiwan netted 16 three-pointers on the way to thrashing Hong Kong 98-67.
Taiwan’s women’s softball squad lost to Japan 3-1 in their morning game.
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