Taiwan’s Lin Yun-ju (林昀儒) yesterday failed in his bid to claim a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, as the 19-year-old rising star lost a nail-biting men’s singles bronze medal match 4-3 to Germany’s Dimitrij Ovtcharov.
It was history repeating itself, after Ovtcharov once again denied Taiwan its first ever Olympic table tennis medal in men’s singles.
The teenage table tennis sensation had his chances in the best-of-seven bronze medal match, garnering four match points in a dramatic sixth game, but the Kiev-born German saved all of them and blunted another rally in the final game for a 13-11, 9-11, 6-11, 11-4, 4-11, 15-13, 11-7 triumph in 66 minutes.
Photo: AFP
Taiwan’s previous best finish in Olympic men’s singles had been nine years earlier in London, when Chuang Chih-yuan (莊智淵) lost a six-game heartbreaker in the bronze medal match to Ovtcharov, 14-12 in the final game.
Lin had a better chance to break the dry spell, but he lamented his inability to convert any of his four match points.
“I didn’t feel especially nervous, but I know I didn’t play some of those points right,” Lin said.
Photo: AFP
The “Silent Assassin,” as he is known because of his calm under pressure, struggled out of the gate in the final game, falling behind 9-3.
“By that point, the momentum had shifted to my opponent, and all I could do was try to catch up one point at a time,” he said.
He rallied for four straight points to pull within 9-7, but Ovtcharov closed out the match when Lin hit a backhand into the net.
“All I can do now is go home and figure out how to get better,” Lin said.
His coach Chiang Peng-lung (蔣澎龍) said that Lin was outstanding in his first Olympic appearance, in which the world No. 6 teenager nearly defeated world No. 1 Fan Zhendong (樊振東) of China in the semi-finals.
Chiang felt Lin did tighten up in the latter stages of yesterday’s match, because he wanted to win too much, but that would change with experience, he said.
“He has a big opportunity in the future, and will now look toward the 2024 Olympics in Paris,” Chiang said.
Ovtcharov praised Lin for pushing him to the brink. Asked about taking bronze from Taiwan for a second time in nine years, Ovtcharov said that Chuang is a good friend and Lin is a teammate of his at his European club, but in the end, the Olympics are a competition.
He had no doubt that Lin would break through.
“He will definitely win a medal one day,” the German said.
Additional reporting by AFP
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS