World No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) yesterday led Taiwan to gold in badminton, while roller sports athletes also topped the podium at the Taipei Summer Universiade.
Local athletes also excelled against international competition to pick up medals in weightlifting.
Taiwan’s medal tally at press time last night was 15 golds, 19 silvers and 12 bronzes to retain third place behind South Korea and Japan.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Much of the attention yesterday was on “Badminton Queen” Tai, with tickets to the events at the Taipei Gymnasium sold out.
Tai has won numerous international titles, but rarely plays major competitions at home. She missed the World Badminton Championships in Scotland to play in Taipei.
Fans cheered the loudest for Tai as she impressed with her repertoire of trick shots and led her team to 3-0 victories in the mixed team event against Thailand in the morning’s semis and Japan in the evening’s final.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
It was Taiwan’s first gold medal in the event at a Universiade.
In her match against Japan’s Natsumi Shimoda in the final, Tai won 21-8, 21-13, while the men’s duo of Lee Yang (李洋) and Lee Jhe-huei (李哲輝) won 21-5, 21-15 against Katsuki Tamate and Kenya Mitsuhashi.
Wang Tzu-wei (王子維) beat Kenta Nishimoto in the individual men’s match of the team final 19-21, 21-17, 21-10.
The individual and doubles matches are to begin tomorrow, with the medals to be decided on Tuesday next week.
“It is a great feeling to hear fans with such enthusiastic support for our team. This is our home-field advantage,” Tai said. “The match for the men finished too fast, so I did not have enough time to warm up and had to make quick adjustments to take to the court.”
“They were good matches for me, although I made some unforced errors, but I am very happy to help Taiwan capture this gold medal,” she said.
A native of Kaohsiung, Tai is enrolled at the University of Taipei.
Earlier this year she won Taiwan’s first title at the Badminton Asia Championships in Wuhan, China.
In roller sports, Taiwan’s Liang Hsuan-Min (梁瑄旼) took gold in the women’s slalom, while Wang Chia-wei (王佳葳) won silver, with Russia’s Kristina Lysenko third.
“I spent a year working toward this gold medal and it has paid off today,” Liang said. “I have lost to Wang [Chia-wei] many times in the past, so I am really happy.”
Liang said she was grateful to her mother and those who had traveled from Tainan to support her.
Wang Chia-wei said that she was looking to improve.
“I was disappointed with the result, but I want to keep improving and use this experience toward training for competitions next month,” she said.
In weightlifting, Taiwan’s Chen Shih-chieh (陳世杰) pocketed silver in the men’s 105kg category with a snatch of 190kg and 225kg in clean and jerk for 415kg in total, while Lo Ying-yuan (羅楹湲) took the bronze in the women’s 90kg category with a snatch of 105kg and 130kg in the clean and jerk for 235kg.
In athletics, Hsiang Chun-hsien (向俊賢) cleared 2.26m to grab bronze for Taiwan in the high jump, with Germany’s Falk Wendrich winning gold and Italy’s Marco Fassinotti taking silver.
Additional reporting by Deirdre Yeo
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
TRAGEDY STRIKES TAIPEI: The suspect died after falling off a building after he threw smoke grenades into Taipei Main Station and went on a killing spree in Zhongshan A 27-year-old suspect allegedly threw smoke grenades in Taipei Main Station and then proceeded to Zhongshan MRT Station in a random killing spree that resulted in the death of the suspect and two other civilians, and seven injured, including one in critical condition, as of press time last night. The suspect, identified as a man surnamed Chang Wen (張文), allegedly began the attack at Taipei Main Station, the Taipei Fire Department said, adding that it received a report at 5:24pm that smoke grenades had been thrown in the station. One man in his 50s was rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
‘ILLEGAL RULING’: The KMT and the TPP slammed the Constitutional Court judgement, saying it contravened the law and was trying to clear the way for a ‘green dictatorship’ The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that amendments to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) passed by the Legislative Yuan last year are unconstitutional, as they contravene due legislative process and separation of powers. The Legislative Yuan on Dec. 20 last year passed amendments stipulating that no fewer than 10 grand justices must take part in deliberations of the Constitutional Court, and at least nine grand justices must agree to declare a law unconstitutional. The Executive Yuan on Jan. 2 requested that lawmakers reconsider the bill, but the Legislative Yuan, under a combined majority of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party
RSS