The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) cited woodball inventor Weng Ming-hui (翁明輝) yesterday for promoting sports exchanges and increasing Taiwan's visibility in the world by means of the sport.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Tzu-pao (
Yang lauded Weng for not only having invented woodball in 1990, but also for promoting it over the past 17 years to make it an internationally known sport.
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Yang said the Olympic Council of Asia has decided to include woodball as an official competition in the First Asian Beach Games scheduled for Oct. 18 to 26 next year in Bali, Indonesia.
He said Weng has become a source of pride for Taiwan and has helped promote the nation's "sports diplomacy."
Weng said he has been promoting woodball around the world in a spirit similar to Taiwan's agricultural technology missions extending assistance to developing nations.
Weng said that thanks to modern communications technology, woodball would continue to make strides abroad over the next few years.
Woodball was invented in 1990 by Weng and Kuang-chu Young.
They tried to create a ball game in which the ball would stay on the ground while in play and that is neither expensive nor requires a large playing space so that they could invite friends to enjoy the game on their lawn.
Woodball, which looks like a cross between golf and croquet, consists of playing a ball from a starting area through a series of gates by a stroke or successive strokes. The competitor who plays the stipulated round or rounds in the fewest strokes is the winner. It is a portable lawn game with players using the same mallet for teeing off, fairway play and putting.
A woodball is larger and heavier than a golf ball. As a result, a woodball only rolls on the grass so the sport can be played in a yard or other small areas as well as on beaches.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it