Taiwanese sprinter Chen Wen-pu made several achievements at the 12th Asian Indoor Athletics Championships on Friday, winning a silver medal in the men’s 60m and setting a new national record.
Chen, 27, won the medal with a 6.60-second sprint, falling just 0.01 seconds behind Chinese sprinter Deng Xinrui’s gold medal-winning 6.59 seconds.
The Taiwanese sprinter’s time was 0.02 seconds ahead of third-place winner Saudi Arabian runner Abdullah Mohammed Dawood’s 6.62 seconds.
Photo: CNA
At the round heat earlier that day, Chen was already in good condition when he came out on top of seven other runners during his 60m qualifier, leading the pack with a time of 6.61 seconds, his initial personal best at the championships.
He once again became the leader of his semi-final heat with 6.61 seconds to qualify for the final, where he updated his personal best to 6.60.
Aside from the silver medal and a new personal best, Chen’s time also set a new national record in Taiwan, faster than the previous 6.68-second record set by Cheng Hsin-fu in 1988 at an indoor athletic event in Osaka, Japan.
This year’s edition of the indoor athletics championships also marked Chen’s return to the international stage after recovering from an Achilles tendon injury he suffered at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
He was finally able to compete professionally again after a year of physical therapy, with his first significant comeback performance observed in October last year, when he clocked 9.95 seconds in the men’s 100m final at Taiwan’s 114th National Games in Yunlin County.
Speaking with the Central News Agency, Chen’s coach Sun Nien-tsu praised his silver-medal sprint, saying that champion Deng is a pretty challenging opponent.
Sun explained that, with Taiwan lacking a training facility for indoor sprints, Chen actually performed quite well, considering the resources the 27-year-old had to work with.
Sun added that Chen only started training at the Taiwan Sports Training Center on Sunday last week as a member of this year’s Asian Games training team so that he could become one of Taiwan’s prospective representatives at the event planned for Japan’s Aichi Prefecture between September and October.
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