Taiwan nabbed the gold in both the women’s and men’s inline freestyle skating speed slalom yesterday at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, after skaters Liu Chiao-hsi (劉巧兮) and Wang Yu-chun (王宥鈞) respectively earned Taiwan’s 13th and 14th gold medals of the competition.
Boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) then added another gold to the tally later in the day by defeating Karina Ibragimova of Kazakhstan 5-0 in a three-round bout to win the women’s 54kg to 57kg category, bringing Taiwan’s total gold count to 15 with three more days to go.
The gold medal is of great significance, as she became the first Taiwanese to win gold in women's boxing at the Asian Games, Sports Administration Director-General Cheng Shih-chung (鄭世忠) said.
Photo: CNA
Cheng said he looks forward to seeing Lin concentrate on preparing for the Olympics next year.
The 27-year-old boxer secured a spot at next year's Olympic Games in Paris by reaching the semi-finals on Wednesday.
In the skating slalom final, 19-year-old Liu defeated Ahmadi Taraneh from Iran 2-0, after having previously triumphed against Romina Salek Esfahan, also from Iran, in the semi-finals and Nichakan Chinupun from Thailand in the round of eight.
Photo courtesy of Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee
“The gold medal was heavier than what I imagined,” Liu told reporters after her victory.
Liu also won gold in the World Skate Games last year before injuring her Achilles tendinitis in May.
Taiwan’s Ting Yu-en (丁于恩), also 19, took bronze after defeating Iran’s Romina Salek Esfahani 2- 1 in the battle for third place.
Photo courtesy of Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee
This was the first time Ting had taken part in any adult competition and she told reporters that she and Liu had been encouraging each other and helping each other through the competition-related anxiety.
In the men’s competition, Wang, 15, earned the gold after defeating Zhang Hao (張顥) of China 2-0, while fellow Taiwanese Huang Pin-ruei (黃品睿) took bronze.
Huang, 16, beat Lesani Reza of Iran 2-0 after having broken the world record of 3.949 seconds earlier yesterday during the preliminaries with a time of 3.885 seconds.
Freestyle slalom skating is a highly technical field of roller skating that involves performing tricks around a straight line of equally spaced cones.
Skaters have 0.2 seconds added to their time for each mistake they make (touching the cones), and do not receive a score after making four mistakes.
Also yesterday, Taiwan’s compound women’s archery team settled for silver after losing to India in the gold medal match 229-230.
The team, comprising archers Huang I-jou (黃逸柔), Chen Yi-hsuan (陳怡瑄) and Wang Lu-yun (王律勻), performed well, but after Wang and Huang both shot 7 points, the team was forced to settle for second.
The team had defeated South Korea 230-224 earlier yesterday in the semi-finals.
Veteran archer Huang, 33, took silver in the women’s team event and placed fourth in the women’s individual event at the 2014 Asian Games held in Incheon, South Korea.
The athlete was one of the victims in the Formosa Fun Coast water park fire in 2015 and it took her more than 18 months to return to the field.
In soft tennis, Lin Wei-chieh (林韋傑) and Huang Shih-yuan (黃詩媛) secured a bronze medal despite losing to Japan in the mixed doubles.
The Taiwanese pair, who earlier in the day beat their Taiwanese counterparts Yu Kai-wen (余凱文) and Cheng Chu-ling (鄭竹玲) in the quarter-finals, lost 2-5 to Toshiki Uematsu and Noa Takahashi in a semi-final match that lasted 30 minutes.
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