Lai Chu-en on Thursday won a bronze medal in the light welterweight category at the Asian Elite Boxing Championships in Amman, Jordan, the first medal for a male Taiwanese boxer at the event in 11 years.
Lai on Tuesday last week beat Abdullah Mohammadi of Afghanistan and a day later bested Kyrgyzstan’s Tashiev Zhantoro.
On Sunday he defeated Iran’s Ashkan Rezaei 4-1 in the quarter-finals, but met his match against Uzbekistan’s Abdullaev Ruslan, who is regarded as one of the best in a new generation of boxers in his nation.
Photo: Wu Meng-ju, Taipei Times
Lai, a bronze medalist at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, was caught in a hard fight early on against the Uzbek, who constantly pushed his opponent back to the ropes, even knocking him down once in a countdown.
Despite a counterattack, the Taiwanese failed to break through his opponent’s defenses, ending with a unanimous 5-0 decision against him.
Last year, Abdullaev won the Uzbekistan Elite National Championships at the age of 19, and was awarded the country’s Best Boxer trophy.
Photo: CNA
Despite the loss, Lai picked up a bronze medal, becoming the first Taiwanese male boxer to win a medal at the Asian Boxing Championships in 11 years after Kao Chih-yuan and Yang Yu-ting bagged bronzes in their respective categories at the 2011 event in Incheon, South Korea.
On Wednesday, female boxers Huang Hsiao-wen (bantamweight) and Wu Shih-yi (lightweight), who were among the 10 Taiwanese in Jordan, also won bronze medals in their respective competitions.
The championships, which are organized by the Asian Boxing Confederation, end tomorrow.
NO HARD FEELINGS: Taiwan’s Lin Hsiang-ti and Indonesia’s Dhinda Amartya Pratiwi embraced after fighting to a tense and rare 30-29 final game in their Uber Cup match The Taiwanese men’s team on Wednesday fought back from the brink of elimination to defeat Denmark in Group C and advance to the quarter-finals of the Thomas Cup, while the women’s team were to face South Korea after press time last night in the Uber Cup quarter-finals in Horsens, Denmark. In the first match, Taiwan’s top shuttler Chou Tien-chen faced a familiar opponent in world No. 3 Anders Antonsen. It was their 16th head-to-head matchup, with the Dane taking his fourth victory in a row against former world No. 2 Chou, winning 21-14, 13-21, 21-15 in 1 hour, 22 minutes. The
Marta Kostyuk’s maiden WTA 1000 title in Madrid came on Saturday thanks to her power, poise and a pair of unexpected lucky shorts. The world No. 23 beat eighth-ranked Mirra Andreeva 6-3, 7-5 in under 90 minutes to secure the most prestigious trophy of her career, her third professional singles title and second in less than a month after Rouen. Yet as the 23-year-old Ukrainian posed for photographs at the Caja Magica, it was not just the silverware that caught the eye. Held alongside her team and her two dogs, Kostyuk showed off a piece of black men’s underwear, prompting
Throwing more than US$5 billion at a divisive new tour and walking away after five seasons does not look like good business, but LIV Golf was not all bad news for Saudi Arabia. Oil-funded LIV, which poached top stars and sent golf’s establishment into a tailspin, helped push the conservative kingdom into global view — one of its key aims, experts said. The exit, confirmed on Thursday after weeks of speculation, does not signal a flight of Saudi money from sport, even after the Middle East war that sparked Iranian attacks around the Gulf, they said. “Saudi Arabia is not
Kite-surfing fabrics, car tires and shortened shoelaces helped Kenyan Sabastian Sawe and Adidas crack the two-hour marathon barrier. When Sawe on Sunday shattered one of athletics’ most elusive barriers in storming to victory at the London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes, 30 seconds, it did not come from just physiology and grit, but from design choices drawn from far beyond the course. Sawe debuted Adidas’ lightest-ever racing shoe, the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3. “It starts with the mentality of the athlete, the coach, and the team behind the product, which is: What can we do better? What is the 1 percent
RSS