Taiwan’s Lee Wan-ting won the nation’s first silver medal in kurash yesterday, while Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Chen Wen-huei won silver in the women’s 69kg weightlifting division at this year’s Asian Games.
Lee, 33, finished second after losing 3-0 to Uzbekistan’s Ibodatkhon Agojonova in the women’s 57kg division.
Kurash is a traditional martial art with roots in Central Asia.
Photo: CNA
The sport focuses primarily on throwing techniques, with competitors aiming to force their opponents onto their backs.
Ground techniques, chokeholds and joint locks are prohibited, and bouts are decided solely by standing throws.
Lee was named Best Female Player by the International Kurash Association in 2024.
Photo: CNA
She graduated from National Taiwan Sport University in Taoyuan and began practicing judo in elementary school before taking up kurash in college.
Lee had failed to reach the semi-finals at the 2018 and 2022 Asian Games.
Lee’s teammate Wang Ping-chun won a bronze medal in the women’s 57kg kurash division after losing 10-0 to Lee in the semi-finals earlier Sunday.
Photo: CNA
WEIGHTLIFTING
In weightlifting, Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Chen lifted a combined 232kg in the women’s 69kg division.
She recorded 106kg in the snatch and 126kg in the clean and jerk.
North Korea’s Song Kuk-hyang won gold for the division with a combined lift of 273kg.
Taiwan has won two gold, seven silver and 18 bronze medals at this year’s Games as of yesterday afternoon.
BIG PICTURE
The Games involve at least 11,000 athletes. That is more than the Summer Olympics two years ago in Paris with about 10,700. And similar to the Olympics, the gap is very wide between the sporting haves, and the have-nots.
Midway through the two-week event, China has won 107 gold medals to second-place Japan’s 31. The overall medal total is closer, but China still leads Japan 176 to 129 through Saturday’s results.
At the bottom of the medal table, four countries have only one bronze medal — Bangladesh, Brunei, Mongolia and Syria.
And another half-dozen countries have yet to win any medals
The global swim stars have been Chinese and Japanese
The six-day swimming competition dominated the first week, and here China piled up 30 golds. Freestyler Zhang Zhanshuo won seven golds and four came in every freestyle distance: the 200-meter, 400, 800 and 1,500. He added gold in three relays.
Chinese 13-year-old Yu Zidi picked up three golds — 200 butterfly and the 200 and 400 individual medleys. Both swimmers should be formidable at the world championships next year in Budapest, Hungary, and the Los Angeles Olympics the year after that.
Despite China’s power, the only world record went to Japan’s Shin Ohashi, who set the record in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:04.83 seconds.
Thai women’s badminton player Pitchamon Opatniputh became the first known doping case at the Asian Games in Japan yesterday, testers said. The 19-year-old returned a positive test for banned substance furosemide and has been provisionally suspended, the International Testing Agency said. The teenager, ranked 18th in the world and regarded as a rising star back home, had been due to face China on Tuesday. The first full day of badminton action at Asia’s biggest sporting spectacular was on Sunday. “The athlete is prevented from competing, training, coaching or participating in any activity during the Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026,” the ITA said. The agency noted
Japan has been starved of swimming success in recent times but with the Olympics two years away junk food-loving teenager Shin Ohashi has emerged as their next big hope. The 17-year-old, who stands just 169cm, has posted the two fastest 200m breaststroke times in the world this year and is aiming for the world record at this year’s Asian Games. Earlier this year he came within almost a second of the 2:05.48 record held by China’s Qin Haiyang. Ohashi has already won gold at the Asian Games in the 100m breaststroke after a dead heat with China’s Dong Zhihao, beating Qin into third
A NEW SEASON: The Games’ MMA bouts bear a limited resemblance to American UFC fights, sparing the cage, but organizers hope this is a step forward A sport once banned in much of the US and famously decried as “human cockfighting” by a high-profile politician is making an ambitious play for the Olympics. Mixed Martial Arts, known as MMA, is making its Asian Games debut this week in Japan — a milestone that fighters and organizers hope leads to bigger things. Galastein Tan, director general of the Federation of International Mixed Martial Arts, said being at the Asian Games was “a big step.” “As for any sport, the inclusion in the continental games is critical,” he said. “Obviously the inclusion means that you already have a good governance structure,
THREE BRONZES: Martial artists dominated Taiwan’s gains for Tuesday, while the baseball team delivered Thailand a thunderous 15-0 shellacking that morning Taiwanese athletes at the Asian Games collected another three bronze medals yesterday, bringing their medals to nine, leaving them in 10th place overall as of yesterday evening, trailing Uzbekistan and leading Iran. Taiwan’s baseball team roared back from a 5-0 defeat by South Korea on Monday to squash Thailand 15-0 as they head into their game today against Hong Kong at 6:30pm at the Games in Japan. KARATE The women’s team kata squad and men’s kumite competitor Chung Meng-yu won bronze medals yesterday. The 34-year-old Chien Hui-hsuan, who won bronze in the women’s individual kata event on Sunday, was joined by
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