Taiwan’s Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Huang Hsiao-wen (黃筱雯) on Saturday won gold at this year’s World Boxing Cup Finals in Sheffield, England.
Competing in the women’s 54kg division, Huang defeated Yesugen Oyuntsetseg of Mongolia 4-1 to win the gold.
Oyuntsetseg won bronze at last year’s Hangzhou Asian Games.
Photo courtesy of coach Liu Tsung-ta
Saturday’s victory was Huang’s best performance since March last year when she clinched the World Championship title in New Delhi, in an event organized by the International Boxing Association.
That tournament was Huang’s first since the Paris Olympics, where she was eliminated in the round-of-16 following a controversial judgement. After the loss, she returned to Taiwan for a short break before training in Japan.
In Sheffield, Huang advanced to the final after receiving a bye in the round-of-16 and defeating Thai boxer Apisada Tantawa on Thursday in a unanimous decision, and beating Tatiana Chagas of Brazil 5-0 on Friday.
Photo: Screengrab from World Taekwondo’s Instagram
Separately, Taiwanese Lin Yu-hsuan (林侑萱) won gold in the junior female individual division at this year’s World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong on Saturday.
Lin defeated South Korea’s Seo Chae-won by 0.02 points in the 15-to-17-year-olds final, winning the Taiwanese team’s first gold medal in the event. It was also her first gold in an international competition.
Lin, a sophomore at National Keelung Girls’ Senior High School, has been practicing taekwondo since her freshman year. She won sparring gold at last year’s National High School Games in the junior-high school 63kg division.
In the 2022 World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Goyang, South Korea, Lin bagged silver in the women’s team competition covering the 12 to 14 age group.
Lin’s school sparring coach is Chien Yu-nan (簡育南). She usually trains at school during the day and commutes to New Taipei City’s Taishan Distrcit (泰山) in the evening to receive guidance from poomsae coach Li Cheng-gang (李晟綱), who was a national player in the past, the Keelung high school said.
Li said that sparring and poomsae training can complement each other, adding that he hoped that with Lin’s victory, she would soon have the opportunity to win gold in sparring at the world championships.
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