Taiwanese professional go player Cho U, who just reclaimed the Meijin tournament title, on Friday said he hopes to promote the game to people in Taiwan and Japan, where he is based.
Cho said he was happy to take the title again on Nov. 2 after nine years with a win against defending champion Yuta Iyama of Japan in four of the seven games in the final.
At a celebration held in his honor by tournament organizers, Cho said his main goals are to pursue other titles and introduce the strategic board game to more people in Taiwan and Japan.
The 38-year-old said he suspended his career in 2015 and returned to Taiwan because he felt he had hit a wall.
He said he was exhausted at the time, both physically and psychologically, but was pleased to be able to interact with Taiwanese go players and teach the game to young people.
The exchanges he had with other Taiwanese go players helped him find form, he said.
Playing go requires mental fortitude, as each loss can be “traumatic,” Cho said, adding that he has taken up rock climbing to help build mental and physical strength.
Cho has the distinction of having won all seven major go titles in Japan — Meijin, Kisei, Honinbo, Judan, Tengen, Gosei and Oza — throughout his career.
He said his two daughters are also enthusiastic about the game.
The elder one is at a go academy and is planning to the take the required tests to advance to a professional level.
His younger daughter, aged nine, is at about level five for amateurs, which is relatively strong for her age group, he said.
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying on Saturday crashed out of the BWF All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, with South Korea’s Se Young-an denying the world No. 3 Tai a chance at a fourth All England title. In a replay of their semi-final showdown last year, the world No. 2 Se again beat Tai, saving four match points in a thrilling deciding game to prevail 17-21, 21-19, 24-22. Tai won the women’s singles title in Birmingham in 2017, 2018 and 2020. In the three times the two superstars faced each other prior to Saturday, Tai, 22, had only come out on top once, when
California-born Lars Nootbaar had never played for Japan before the World Baseball Classic, but he has become so popular in his adopted country that sales of pepper mills have shot up in tribute to his trademark celebration. The 25-year-old outfielder — the first player born outside Japan to represent the country at the tournament — mimics twisting a pepper mill after each hit to show he wants to “grind out” a win for his team. The celebration has become a smash hit during Japan’s games in Tokyo, with Nootbaar’s teammates jumping on the bandwagon and fans bringing pepper grinders to the stadium. Nootbaar
LAST ONE STANDING: The world No. 3 was the only Taiwanese left in the tournament, while there were upsets in the men’s singles and the women’s doubles Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying on Thursday defeated Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-19, 21-12 to reach the quarter-finals of the BWF All England Open in Birmingham. Tai, the world No. 3, needed only 40 minutes to close out the round-of-16 matchup at the Utilita Arena. In the opening game, the Taiwanese shuttler established an early 10-5 cushion, before an aggressive Ongbamrungphan fought her way back into the tie, winning nine straight points to take a 10-14 lead. The pair traded the lead to bring the scores to 18-19, but Tai held her nerve to close out the first game. After a 2-2 tie early in
When Taiwan lost to Cuba 7-1 at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) on Sunday, it was an opportunity missed. A win would have sent the team to the quarter-finals in Tokyo. Instead, the loss gave Taiwan a 2-2 record, the same as the other four teams in Pool A, but they finished last because of tiebreakers. So, was the team’s performance a success or a failure? The 2-2 record would suggest somewhere in between, but two baseball experts, National Taiwan Sport University (NTSU) associate professor Kung Jung-tang and veteran commentator Tseng Wen-cheng, gave Taiwan’s WBC performance a resounding thumbs-up. “The team’s offensive showing was
RSS