About 20,000 people yesterday took part in the annual Sun Moon Lake International Swimming Carnival in Nantou County, with extra disease prevention measures in place amid COVID-19 concerns, organizers said.
Nantou County Commissioner Lin Ming-chen (林明溱) said that businesses in the popular tourist area were relieved to learn that the annual event would go ahead after the central government approved it in light of the additional measures.
This year, the organizers checked each participant’s temperature, and required all participants to wear a mask up until entering the water and immediately after finishing the 3km swim.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Ritchie B. Tongo
The swimmers were also divided into four groups with different time slots, and the intervals between the starting times were longer than in the past, the organizers said.
According to the organizers, 21,828 people, including 195 foreign nationals, signed up as part of 1,998 teams for the event, which has been held since 1983.
Participants included former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and a team led by Australian Representative to Taiwan Gary Cowan, who took his daughter and colleagues to the event following a challenge from Canadian Representative to Taiwan Jordan Reeves, Cowan wrote on Twitter.
Photo courtesy of the Australian Office in Taipei
When he first arrived in Taiwan, he was told that Taiwanese perform three outdoor activities in their lifetime: climb Yushan (玉山), swim across Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) and bike around Taiwan proper, Cowan said.
Cowan, who has been in Taiwan for two years and nine months, said he has been promoting “sports diplomacy,” and has explored Taiwan’s natural beauty through hiking and cycling.
He has also participated in the Taipei 101 climb, and hiked up Yushan and Syueshan (雪山), he said.
He also joined members of the Australia New Zealand Chamber of Commerce in Taipei on a cycling trip from New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) to Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) in Pingtung County, in addition to other cycling trips including one from Hualien County to Tainan.
In June, he rode the circuit traversed by riders in the annual King of the Mountain event, and next month he plans to cycle from Taipei to Tainan, he said.
Yesterday’s swim was a “once in a lifetime experience,” Cowan wrote on Twitter.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS