Taiwanese tennis duo Lin Chia-wen (林家文) and Ho Chiu-mei (何秋美) on Thursday defended their women’s doubles title at the Summer Deaflympics in Brazil, earning Taiwan’s second gold medal at the Games.
Lin and Ho defeated Germans Heike Albrecht-Schroder and Verena Fleckenstein 6-4, 6-1 in a relatively comfortable victory.
“After waiting for five years, we are able to win a gold medal again,” Lin said after the match, while also thanking her partner for her performance.
Photo courtesy of tennis coach Cheng Wei-yang
The duo won the women’s doubles in 2017 at the Summer Deaflympics in Turkey, the most recent previous edition of the Games.
Lin also took home gold in the women’s singles event that year.
In Brazil, she still has chances to win gold in two more events — the women’s singles and mixed doubles — with both finals scheduled for yesterday.
Ho was to vie for the bronze medal in the women’s singles against Rotem Ashkenazy of Israel.
In other events, Taiwan’s Hsu Le (許樂) advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s 200m dash with a time of 26.32 seconds in the qualifying round on Thursday. She was to race in the semi-finals and finals yesterday.
Earlier this week, Hsu won the women’s 100m hurdles to snag Taiwan’s first gold medal at this year’s Games, after she earlier won a bronze medal in the women’s 100m.
The Taiwanese delegation consists of 39 athletes, who were competing in eight sports — track and field, badminton, table tennis, tennis, men’s basketball, karate, taekwondo and shooting.
UPDATED (3:40pm): A suspected gas explosion at a shopping mall in Taichung this morning has killed four people and injured 20 others, as emergency responders continue to investigate. The explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Situn District (西屯) at 11:33am. One person was declared dead at the scene, while three people were declared deceased later after receiving emergency treatment. Another 20 people sustained major or minor injuries. The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the explosion at 11:33am and sent rescuers to respond. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, it said. The National Fire
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
ALL-IN-ONE: A company in Tainan and another in New Taipei City offer tours to China during which Taiwanese can apply for a Chinese ID card, the source said The National Immigration Agency and national security authorities have identified at least five companies that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese identification cards while traveling in China, a source said yesterday. The issue has garnered attention in the past few months after YouTuber “Pa Chiung” (八炯) said that there are companies in Taiwan that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese documents. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) last week said that three to five public relations firms in southern and northern Taiwan have allegedly assisted Taiwanese in applying for Chinese ID cards and were under investigation for potential contraventions of the Act Governing
‘LAWFUL USE’: The last time a US warship transited the Taiwan Strait was on Oct. 20 last year, and this week’s transit is the first of US President Donald Trump’s second term Two US military vessels transited the Taiwan Strait from Sunday through early yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, the first such mission since US President Donald Trump took office last month. The two vessels sailed south through the Strait, the ministry said, adding that it closely monitored nearby airspace and waters at the time and observed nothing unusual. The ministry did not name the two vessels, but the US Navy identified them as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the Pathfinder-class survey ship USNS Bowditch. The ships carried out a north-to-south transit from