Taiwanese Olympic gold medalist Kuo Hsing-chun (郭婞淳) on Saturday won her fifth world title at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, clinching two gold medals and one silver.
Kuo, who competed in the women’s under-59kg division, won a silver medal in the snatch event after lifting 100kg, and then two gold medals with a clean and jerk of 130kg and a combined lift of 230kg.
Kuo also won the IWF World Championship title in 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2013.
Photo: Reuters
Her latest win was her 12th consecutive victory in the under-59kg and under-58kg categories, leaving her unbeaten since she finished third at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The competition consists of two parts: the snatch, in which an athlete lifts the bar from the floor to above their head in one movement, and the clean and jerk, which requires the athlete to first bring the bar to their chest before jerking it over their head.
Athletes compete by performing each of the two types of lifts three times and adding together the heaviest weight lifted in each. The person who scores the highest combined weight wins the competition.
On Saturday, Kuo lifted 97kg in her first attempt in the snatch, which was heavier than any of the attempts of her opponents.
She settled for a best of 100kg made in her second attempt after an unsuccessful third attempt.
Mariia Hanhur of Ukraine won the gold after lifting 101kg in her third attempt.
By the time Kuo successfully lifted 128kg in her second attempt in the clean and jerk, she had effectively won the title, as her combined lift outweighed that of her opponents.
In her third attempt, Kuo lifted 130kg to extend her combined lift to 230kg, beating Colombian Yenny Alvarez by 4kg, to take two golds.
All three world records in the women’s under-59kg class are held by Kuo. They are a 110kg snatch, a 140kg clean and jerk and a 247kg total.
Kuo has won 10 golds, five silvers and two bronzes at the World Championships. The number of gold medals she has also surpasses the nine accumulated by former Olympic national weightlifter Chen Jui-lien (陳瑞蓮), making Kuo Taiwan’s top weightlifter.
Considered a national sports hero, Kuo has had a remarkable year, setting two world records at the Asian Championships in April.
She carried Taiwan’s flag during the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, where she claimed her first Olympic gold medal.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS