About 140 athletes and their coaches are scheduled to leave today for the Asian Para Games in Indonesia, which open in Jakarta on Saturday.
Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday handed the nation’s Olympic flag to the delegation at the ceremony held at the Sports Administration’s headquarters in Taipei.
Chen thanked the athletes and coaches for the time and effort they have made and wished them the best at the Asia Para Games, adding their performance would encourage other physically challenged individuals to exercise regularly and take part in competitive sports.
Photo: CNA
The 143-member delegation includes 89 athletes. They are to compete in 11 categories: track and field, swimming, powerlifting, shooting, archery, table tennis, judo, wheelchair tennis, badminton, wheelchair basketball and bowling.
Chang Wei-chieh (張維捷), one of the swimmers, is a senior studying applied foreign language at Takming University of Science and Technology.
Born with no shinbones, Chang learned to swim as a third-grader in elementary school, and his specialty is the 100m breaststroke, for which he holds a national record of 1 minute, 52:75 seconds.
“I don’t care if people call me a legless person, a robot or a freak. I am confident and tell everybody I’m an ironman,” Chang once posted on Facebook.
Chang said he hoped his experiences would inspire other physically challenged people to forget about how others might look at them and show their confidence in sports.
Given that the Asian Para Games are his first chance to represent the nation, Chang said he was really nervous, but he was also happy and thinks that it is going to be a cool experience.
He was honored to have received the subsidy from Chen on behalf of the delegation, and it motivated him to strive for his best performance, Chang said.
He trains for at least two hours per day, and US Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps is his idol, he said, adding that he hopes to emulate Phelps’ performances.
Two women, Hu Kuang-chiu (胡光秋) and Yang Yi-cheng (楊伊宸), made it onto the national wheelchair badminton team for the first time.
About 2,400 athletes from 43 nations and regions in Asia are to compete in the Games in Jakarta.
Taiwan won four gold medals, 10 silvers and 24 bronzes at the 2014 Asian Para Games in Incheon, South Korea, finishing eighth in the total medal count.
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
Taiwan is to extend its visa-waiver program for Philippine passport holders for another year, starting on Aug. 1, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said on Friday. Lin made the announcement during a reception in Taipei marking the 127th anniversary of Philippine independence and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The decision reflected Taiwan’s commitment to deepening exchanges with the Philippines, the statement cited Lin as saying, adding that it was a key partner under the New Southbound Policy launched in 2016. Lin also expressed hope
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Temperatures in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) climbed past 37°C yesterday, as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued heat alerts for 16 municipalities, warning the public of intense heat expected across Taiwan. The hottest location in Taiwan was in Sindian, where the mercury reached 37.5°C at about 2pm, according to CWA data. Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) recorded a temperature of 37.4°C at noon, Taitung County’s Jinfeng Township (金峰) at 12:50 pm logged a temperature of 37.4°C and Miaoli County’s Toufen Township (頭份) reached 36.7°C at 11:40am, the CWA said. The weather agency yesterday issued a yellow level information notice for Taipei, New
RSS