Taiwan’s Wen Tzu-yun won her country’s ninth gold medal of the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, yesterday with a decisive victory in the final of the women’s under-55kg karate.
The 21-year-old Wen, whose best result in international competition previously was a third place at the East Asian Games last year, cruised past Sabina Zakharova of Kazakhstan 7-1 to take the gold.
However, it was actually Wen’s semi-final bout that stood out, when the unsung Wen shocked world No. 1 Miki Kobayashi of Japan.
Photo: Reuters
The two finished tied 7-7 on points, but Wen was given the decision by all five judges.
Taiwan also won a bronze medal in the karate when Chao Jou captured the women’s under-68kg bronze medal against Nour Abusalah of Jordan by a 4-1 judges decision after the two were tied 2-2 on points.
Taiwanese athletes also added to the nation’s medal tally in taekwondo, taking silver and bronze in two men’s categories.
Photo: AFP
Baby-faced Huang Yu-jen took silver in the men’s under-54kg weight class, falling to world No. 1 Kim Tae-hun of South Korea 14-3.
The 17-year-old Taiwanese was unable to mount much of a defense against Kim’s barrage of lightning-fast and precise kicks, or put any pressure on his rival.
The 20-year-old Kim, who won the Asian Championships in Tashkent in May, had coasted through his draw before his battle with Huang, winning his three previous bouts by 13, 12 and 15 points.
Photo: AFP
Huang reached the final through a tense semi-final bout against Thai opponent Ramnarong Sawekwiharee, striking when it counted most.
Nursing a 5-4 lead, he delivered a three-point kick to his rival’s face with about 25 seconds left in the final round that made the difference in his 8-5 win.
The bronze medal was won by Nantou County native Wei Chen-yang.
Wei had described winning a gold medal in the men’s under-58kg division at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou as his most memorable sporting achievement and he had hoped to repeat as Asian Games champion in Incheon.
However, he was forced to settle for bronze after he lost to the winner of the Asian Championships, Farzan Ashour Zadeh Fallah of Iran, 13-6 in the semi-finals.
Wei went into the Games with high expectations, having won the World Taekwondo Grand Prix in Kazakhstan at the end of August by defeating the 17-year-old Iranian 9-5 in the final, but he had trouble parrying the aggressive attacks of Ashour Zadeh Fallah yesterday, falling behind 4-0 to one- and three-point kicks in the first round.
Wei pulled it back to 5-4 early in the second round, but was hit by another three-point kick to the face later in the round that put the Iranian comfortably ahead and deflated Wei’s morale.
After his defeat, Wei announced he plans to retire from the sport, saying he wants to take a break for a while and then finish his graduate degree at National Taiwan University of Sport.
Taekwondo is traditionally one of Taiwan’s stronger sports and at this year’s Games the nation won seven taekwondo medals. South Korea won 10, while China picked up nine.
In the soft tennis, both Taiwan’s men’s and women’s teams qualified for today’s semi-finals yesterday.
The men’s team defeated Vietnam 2-0, Nepal 2-0, Indonesia 3-0 and China 2-0 in their Group A matches to set up a semi-final against Japan, while the women’s team beat Mongolia 2-0, then fell to a 2-1 defeat to China to qualify for a semi-final against South Korea.
Meanwhile, the Games were hit by yet another doping scandal yesterday when China’s Zhang Wenxiu was expelled and stripped of the gold medal she won in the hammer throw.
The Olympic Council of Asia announced that Zhang, an Olympic medalist in Beijing in 2008, had tested positive for zeranol, a banned anabolic agent.
She became the sixth competitor, and the second gold medalist, to fail a drugs test in Incheon, leaving an ugly stain on Asia’s biggest multi-sports event, which ends today.
The announcement came one day after Malaysian martial arts champion Tai Cheau Xuen lost an appeal to be reinstated after testing positive for a banned stimulant.
Cambodian soft tennis player Yi Sophany, Tajikistan soccer player Khurshed Beknazarov, Iraqi weightlifter Mohammed Jasim Abboo Al Aifuri and Syrian karate competitor Nour Aldin al-Kurdi also tested positive.
News of the latest positive test overshadowed the penultimate day’s competition where China won another seven gold medals to take their total to 149, while Kazakhstan had an extraordinary day, winning eight golds to remain fourth.
Six of those came in the boxing ring as their amateur pugilists dominated the men’s finals.
Middleweight Zhanibek Alimkhanuly and light heavyweight Adilbek Niyazymbetov both scored impressive wins, while flyweight Ilyas Suleimenov took gold in a scrappy split-decision win over Uzbekistan’s Shakhobidin Zoirov.
“This success comes from the previous generation,” Suleimenov said. “Our head coaches are great, and the boxing system and facilities in our country are well-developed.”
Kazakhstan also won gold in the welterweight, heavyweight and super heavyweight divisions, the final bout of the day a clash between Ivan Dychko and Jassem Delavari.
Dychko landed more of the few clean punches that found their mark to earn a unanimous decision.
“I want to celebrate today with my country. We got six golds, one silver and one bronze medal. I’m so happy with this result,” Dychko said.
Sri Lanka won their first Asian Games gold medal since 2002 with a crushing 68-run win over Afghanistan in the men’s cricket final.
Unlike the previous day, when Sri Lanka won a coin toss to get into the gold medal match after their semi-final with Bangladesh was washed out, luck played no part in the final.
With a strong squad featuring three members of the team that won this year’s Twenty20 World Cup, Sri Lanka made 133 then bowled out Afghanistan for just 65.
“This is a great feeling, because this is our first gold medal since 2002,” said Sri Lanka captain Lahiru Thirimanne, who top scored with 57 off just 37 balls.
Afghanistan took the silver medal of the second time a row, a remarkable achievement for a war-torn nation new to the game.
Most of the country’s players learned to play cricket in refugee camps in neighboring Pakistan.
“This is a good sign for us, another silver medal is good,” Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi said.
Bahrain won the men’s marathon when Kenyan-born Ali Hasan Mahboob crossed the finish line first after seeing off a spirited challenge from Japan’s Kohei Matsumara.
Japan won nine medals yesterday, but no golds, losing the men’s volleyball final to Iran in the last event of the day.
Qiu Bo won the men’s 10m platform title and He Zi successfully defended her 3m springboard title as China completed a clean sweep of the 10 gold medals in diving.
Cambodia captured their first ever gold medal at the Games and their first of any color since 1970 when teenager Seavmey Sorn won the women’s under-73kg taekwondo final, beating Iran’s Fatemeh Rouhani.
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