Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting on Friday punched her ticket to the women’s 57kg quarter-finals amid a renewed gender row, while the nation’s participation in the Paris Olympics archery event came to an end yesterday after Taiwanese athlete Lei Chien-ying lost to South Korean archer Jeon Hun-young in the round-of-16 in the women’s individual event.
As Taiwan’s last pugilist to compete in Paris, two-time International Boxing Association (IBA) world champion Lin advanced to the quarter-finals by defeating Sitora Turdibekova of Uzbekistan by unanimous decision.
Lin, who entered Tokyo three years ago as the top seed but was defeated in her first bout, said she still felt a bit nervous due to the traumatic experience but was glad to collect her first win at the Games.
Photo: AFP
However, the spotlight was stolen by disputes over the gender eligibility of Lin and Imane Khelif of Algeria, who is competing in the women’s 66kg division. Both athletes were disqualified from the IBA World Championships last year.
The issue was brought up in late last month and has seen the public make remarks with apparent misunderstandings of the situation.
The International Olympic Committee has reiterated that transgender issues do not apply to Lin and Khelif and that all boxers at the Games fully comply with the rules established by the Paris Boxing Unit.
Photo: AFP
Born and raised as a girl and having competed in women’s events, Lin was not exempt from the wave of controversy. Turdibekova’s coach showed no friendly response when she attempted to shake hands with him after her win.
More than 50 international press members awaited her after the match, but she declined to speak, with her coach Tseng Tzu-chiang speaking on her behalf.
“We have talked a lot about this issue, but it still shocked her to see so many press members, so we decided to let her focus on preparing for the next match,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
Tseng expressed regret that she had to go through this, but he has faith that Lin was not significantly affected by the uproar, given her performance in the ring.
Lin is the third Taiwanese female boxer to reach the quarter-finals or farther, following Wu Shih-yi in the 60kg semi-finals and Chen Nien-chin in the 66kg quarter-finals.
Lin is slated to face Svetlana Kamenova Staneva of Bulgaria today and would be guaranteed at least a bronze in the event of a win, as there is no third-place playoff in boxing.
ARCHERY
Lei took an early lead in the match to secure two points in the first set after shooting 9-10-9, while Jeon’s 7-10-10 did not garner the South Korean archer any points.
However, Lei was unable to capitalize on the good start and failed to outshoot Jeon until her scores of 9-10-10 in the fourth set beat her Korean counterpart’s 8-9-8 to tie the match at 4-4.
In individual events, three arrows constitute a set.
In the singles event at the Olympics, winning a set is worth two points and a tie is worth one point, with the first to six points the winner of the match.
If both archers are tied after five sets, the match goes to a tiebreak in which each athlete fires a single arrow in a shoot-off, with the winner being the archer whose arrow is closest to the center.
During the last set, both archers hit within the 9-point ring with their first arrows, but Jeon followed her shot with a 10 while Lei hit 9.
For the crucial final shot of the match which could have led to a shoot-off, Lei hit the 7-point ring while Jeon scored a 9 to gain 2 points for the last set and win the match 6-4.
On her future in the sport as one of Taiwan’s most seasoned archers, the 34-year-old said she would take a break before thinking about the possibility of representing Taiwan at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Lei revealed that she had sustained torn ligaments in her left elbow at the end of May, which meant she had to take medication and receive physical therapy for the past two months.
“At that time, in order to qualify for the Olympics, I couldn’t rest,” Lei said. “Like today, I had to take painkillers before the match so I could compete. The future will be determined by whether or not my body can still handle it.”
In her long archery career for Taiwan, Lei won a bronze medal in the women’s team archery event at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
BADMINTON
Meanwhile, male ace Chou Tien-chen was knocked out in the men’s singles quarter-finals by Lakshya Sen of India, 21-19, 15-21, 12-21, in a 75-minute match on Friday.
This is the third time Chou has been ousted in the quarter-finals, tying the team’s record in the event.
The 34-year-old veteran said both had great performances, but he failed to find a solution as the young Indian phenom managed to keep him at the back court.
“I really wanted to win a medal for us [in men’s singles]. I’m sorry I didn’t make it,” he said.
However, Chou did not indicate any plans to retire soon.
Meanwhile, Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin, who were crowned champions in the event in Tokyo three years ago, clinched a spot in the men’s doubles finals by holding off the world No. 2 Danish duo, Anders Skaarup Rasmussen and Kim Astrup, again in Paris.
Similar to their previous match in the group stage on Monday, the Taiwanese duo seized the victory after a 66-minute battle, coming back from 18-21 to win the next two games 21-17, 21-10.
The victory makes them the first Taiwanese shuttlers to win more than one Olympic medal, with a chance to secure back-to-back gold.
Asked to comment on the difference between Paris and Tokyo, Lee expressed surprise at the support they received from fans in the French capital.
“There was no audience at the Tokyo Olympics and not many people knew us, so the vibe is entirely different now. We didn’t have so many fans cheering for us. The sound was surprisingly loud, [because I think] European players should receive more cheers [than we do],” said the 28-year- old, who has decided to retire at the end of this season.
They are to face the world No. 1 duo from China, Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang today. Lee and Wang have won two of their previous four matches against them, according to the Badminton World Federation.
SWIMMING
Also on Friday, Angie Coe failed to advance to the semi-finals despite finishing second in her group in the women’s 200m individual medley.
Her coach Huang Yung-chih said that Coe was disqualified because her dolphin kick was not synchronized during the butterfly stroke, as confirmed after a video review.
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