Taiwanese taekwondoin Wang Chieh-ling on Friday won gold in the women’s under-44kg division at the Chuncheon World Taekwondo Junior Championships, with Taiwanese as of yesterday having claimed three medals overall at the six-day event in South Korea.
In her world junior championships debut, Wang opened with a 2-1 (4-12, 22-10, 13-1) win over tournament favorite Parnian Saki from Iran in the round of 64 and then upset Kazakhstan’s Sofiya Klimenko 2-0 (14-11, 20-17) in the next round.
After beating Chelsea Gomez of Australia in the round of 16, Wang outlasted Bulgarian Deya Peeva 2-0 and Ruveyda nur Evin of Turkey 2-1 in the quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively.
Photo taken from the World Taekwondo Federation Web site
In the final, the young Taiwanese fought an outstanding match against Shin Su-in, beating the South Korean 2-0 (6-0, 17-6).
Wang, who is of Amis descent, is a freshman at Yunlin County’s Yi-Feng Senior High School. She was a bronze medalist at the World Taekwondo Cadet Championships in Sarajevo last year.
Coach Chu Chien-an told reporters after the Chuncheon tournament that he had encouraged Wang to have confidence at her first world junior championships.
When the draw was announced, Chu said he focused on motivating her to face the challenge and fight every bout like it was for the gold medal.
The best that his previous athletes had achieved was to win silver, he said.
“To be able to win the gold medal this time was really incredible. It was like a dream,” he said.
Wang said that the gold medal meant a lot to her and that her inspiration came from Taiwan’s Lo Chia-ling, who made her Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games in 2021, winning a bronze medal at the age of 19.
At the time, Wang said she hoped to also one day stand on the Olympic podium.
On Thursday, Taiwan’s Lin Hsin-tung claimed a bronze medal in the women under-63kg event, as did Wang Wei-chia in the women’s Under-68kg category yesterday.
The 14th edition of the World Taekwondo Junior Championships ends today. Three Taiwanese were in the starting lineups, with Chou Mei-tzu to compete in the women’s under-55kg, Cai Yu-hao to contest the men’s under-68kg category and Wei Hong-you listed in the men’s under-59kg event.
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