Taiwan’s top hurdler Zhang Bo-ya (張博雅) won gold in the women’s 60-meter hurdles on Sunday at the 2026 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Tianjin, China, setting a new national record of 8.12 seconds and securing Taiwan’s first gold medal of the meet.
Zhang, known as Taiwan’s “hurdles sweetheart,” broke her own national record twice during the competition.
She clocked 8.18 seconds in the heats earlier in the day, surpassing the previous mark of 8.27 seconds she set at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in March last year, before lowering it again in the final.
Photo courtesy of Studio Horizon / Yuet LI
Starting from lane six, Zhang had a slightly slow start in the final but surged after clearing the last hurdle to take the lead at the finish. Japan’s Chisato Kiyoyama and Hitomi Nakajima placed second and third, respectively.
Zhang’s coach Wang Kuo-hui (王國慧) told CNA the result was not unexpected, even though the athlete is currently in her winter training phase.
“Bo-ya has been in very good condition throughout winter training, so we had set a target of 8.10 seconds for this race,” Wang said.
Wang said Zhang did not make any special training adjustments for the championships. After the heats, she focused on recovery and treatment, while pre-final warm- ups emphasized improving her reaction at the start.
In other events on Sunday, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-tang (林昱 堂), a Penghu native, won silver in the men’s long jump with a leap of 7.87 meters.
Together with earlier silver medals from Chen Wen-pu (陳玟溥) in the men’s 60 meters and Liao Yan-jun (廖晏 均) in the women’s 60 meters, Taiwan concluded the championships with one gold and three silver medals.
The Chinese Taipei Athletics Association said it will award a total of NT$240,000 (US$7,600) in prize money to medal-winning athletes and coaches, with Zhang receiving NT$60,000 for her record-breaking performance.
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