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.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.