Taiwan’s Pan Yu-fen, Chou Chia-chen and Tsai Hsin-yi won bronze in the women’s trio bowling behind two South Korea trios that picked up gold and silver.
At Tianjin Tennis Center Taiwan’s Chen Chu-ling won bronze along with Kim Bo-mi of South Korea in the soft tennis women’s singles competition. Kim Aek-yung of South Korea beat China’s Zhao Lei to claim gold.
There was a near miss for Taiwanese swimmer Wang Yu-lian who finished fourth in the men’s 200m freestyle final. Japan’s Naito Ehara took gold with compatriot Chiaki Ishibashi claiming silver and Nam Ki-woong of South Korea bronze.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Taiwan landed a bronze in the men’s team badminton late on Thursday behind China and Hong Kong, who won gold and silver respectively.
Meanwhile, double Olympic Champion Ye Shiwen claimed gold in the women’s 200m individual medley, as China continued to power ahead in the medals table.
Ye won the race ahead of Hong Kong’s Siobhan Bernadette Haughey, who took silver, and bronze medal winner Sakiko Shimizu of Japan. Seventeen-year-old Ye has had an indifferent year after she stunned the world at the 2012 London Olympics, taking gold in both the 200m and 400m individual medley events.
She set a new world record of 4 minutes 28.43 seconds to claim the 400m title and also broke the Olympic record in the 200m event.
However, she failed to win a single medal at the World Championships in Barcelona in late July.
Her swimming teammate, Jiao Liuyang — who also won gold in London, in the 200m butterfly — claimed bronze in Tianjin in the 50m butterfly event.
Jiao’s compatriot Lu Ying won gold, while Japan’s Yuka Kato claimed silver.
“I think my performance was not bad,” Jiao said. “I was predicting a third place finish after I came third in the heats.”
Jiao also experienced a disappointing World Championships, finishing sixth in her favorite event, the 200m butterfly. However, she recorded the world’s fastest time of the year — 2 minutes 4.54 seconds — at China’s National Games last month.
Her time at the 50m butterfly in Tianjin was 26.85 seconds, behind Lu’s 26.19 seconds.
BASKETBALL
BY PAUL HUANG
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Converting 14 of their 29 attempts from behind the three-point line, Taiwan overwhelmed Mongolia 100-72 in their final men’s basketball preliminaries game at the East Asian Games in Tianjin yesterday.
The win not only gave Taiwan a perfect 3-0 mark in the preliminaries, but also earned them the top-seed berth from Group A for tomorrow’s semi-finals when they will meet Japan. The other semi-final sees South Korea take on China.
Lin “the Beast” Chih-chieh led the way in the three-point attack for Taiwan with five three’s from downtown for a team-high 22 points on the day.
Also starring for Taiwan from the perimeters were Chen Shih-chieh and Tsai Wen-cheng whose 21 combined points kept the Mongolia defense honest to free up the inside of the paint for big men Quincy Davis and Tseng Wen-ting. The twin towers picked up five and four assists respectively.
Taiwan began the contest with a high-scoring 33-point first quarter to take a 33-17 lead and never looked back as they maintained a 20-plus point cushion from the second quarter en route to the blowout win.
With the Taiwan defense providing constant pressure to disrupt Mongolia’s offensive rhythm, the bulk of the scoring load fell on Sanchir Tungalag whose game-high 28 points was the lone highlight for Mongolia.
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