Taiwanese weightlifter Kuo Hsing-chun (郭婞淳) yesterday completed her elusive quest for Olympic gold, clinching Taiwan’s first win at the Tokyo Games as she set Olympic records in the women’s under-59kg weight class.
Kuo, who has not lost a major competition in her weight class since the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where she was hampered by injury and finished third, finally chased down the gold medal that had long remained just out of her grasp.
The 27-year-old finished with a combined lift of 236kg — 103kg in the snatch and 133kg in the clean and jerk — 21kg more than runner-up Polina Guryeva of Turkmenistan.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Kuo’s snatch, clean and jerk, and combined lifts were all Olympic records, but well off her combined world record of 247kg on a day when winning gold was the main order of business.
She dropped to the floor with a bitter smile after failing at a lift of 141kg in the clean and jerk to break her record of 140kg.
“I was competing against myself, and I wanted to break the world record,” Kuo said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I am very happy that I put all the pieces together now, adding in the Olympic gold medal today,” she said.
Guryeva won silver, Turkmenistan’s first medal at the Tokyo Games, while Mikiko Andoh earned Japan’s first medal in the sport by claiming the bronze.
Andoh burst into tears on the stage after her final attempt at the clean and jerk and was helped up by two coaches.
Photo: AFP
The Japanese lifter said she injured her knee this month by dropping a barbell when she was practicing.
“I thought that was the end of it when that happened,” Andoh said. “I was not able to do the clean and jerk until I got here today.”
Later yesterday, Taiwanese Chen Wen-huei (陳玟卉) clinched a bronze medal in the women’s under-64kg weight class, taking home the national squad’s second medal for the day.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The 24-year-old finished with a combined lift of 230kg — 103kg in the snatch and 127kg in the clean and jerk.
She was beaten by Canada’s Maude Charron, who took gold with a combined lift of 236kg, and Italy’s Giorgia Bordignon, who lifted 232kg.
It was Chen’s first Olympic appearance after wining three gold medals at the Asian Weightlifting Championships in Uzbekistan earlier this year and later securing a berth at the Tokyo Olympics.
Taiwan now has had one gold, two silver and three bronze medals in Tokyo.
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
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.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue