Taiwan got back on the medal trail at the World Games yesterday with a silver medal in jujitsu and a bronze in korfball.
After a lull on Monday in which Taiwan earned just one silver in the softball, an invitational event, the nation’s athletes returned to their winning ways yesterday.
The two medals took Taiwan’s overall haul to a healthy five gold, five silver and three bronze in the first five days of competition, putting the nation fourth in the medals table.
Yang Hsien-tzu narrowly missed out on jujitsu gold, losing to Sabrina Hatzky of Germany in the final of the women’s 62kg division at the Sun Yat-sen University Gymnasium.
Earlier, in the men’s 69kg category, Liu Chieng-hung lost out on a bronze medal when he was defeated by Germany’s Andrej Tierbach in the repechage.
The nation’s first medal of the day had come earlier at the National Kaohsiung University gym as Taiwan secured third place and a bronze in the korfball third-fourth place playoff match against Russia. Leading 15-10 at halftime, Taiwan extended their lead in the second half on the back of some sharp shooting from No. 11 Wu Chun-hsien, who finished the match with six goals.
The Netherlands beat Belgium 25-20 for the gold medal and retained their title in a battle between the two traditional korfball powers.
Meanwhile, the second day of boules at the 228 Memorial Park saw Taiwanese duo Chen Hung-wen and Sun Chaia-yi grab another win, beating Belgium 13-6 to qualify for the final four before losing 13-4 against the same opponents in the semi-final. The women, however, were eliminated after another defeat when they lost 6-4 to Israel.
In the boules raffa, men’s doubles duo Chen Hung-ting and Huang Wei-hsiang were eliminated after being soundly beaten 15-0 by Brazil.
In the ladies’ division Chung Yu-chun and Tang Ya-ting suffered the same fate, losing 15-1 to Italian duo Loana Capelli and Elisa Luccarini.
The women’s boules Lyonnaise precision-throw preliminary round saw Taiwan’s Tsao Chia-hui go into the bronze-medal match after finishing fourth, while in the men’s event Huang Hsien-chang was eliminated after finishing fifth. In the shuttle throw semi-finals, home girl Huang Yu-ju finished fourth and was eliminated.
Meanwhile, in the 10-pin bowling singles, Wang Yu-ling qualified for the women’s top 10 round today, while compatriot Fang Chin-nan failed, finishing 13th overall in the men’s qualifying.
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