National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) yesterday launched a series of online home exercise videos featuring Olympic athletes from the school.
The Tokyo Summer Olympics are scheduled to open on July 23 after being postponed from last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nine students from NTNU’s College of Sports and Recreation are to represent the nation at the Games this year, the university said.
Photo courtesy of National Taiwan Normal University
They are: artistic gymnast Tang Chia-hung (唐嘉鴻), swimmer Wang Kuan-hung (王冠閎), archers Wei Chun-heng (魏均珩) and Lei Chien-ying (雷千瑩), weightlifters Chen Wen-hui (陳玟卉) and Hsieh Yun-ting (謝昀庭), shooter Lin Ying-shin (林穎欣), track athlete Hsieh Hsi-en (謝喜恩) and karateka Wen Tzu-yun (文姿云).
Three alumni from NTNU — tennis player Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳) and shooters Tien Chia-chen (田家榛) and Wu Chia-ying (吳佳穎) — are also to compete in the Games, the university said.
As of Sunday, 61 Taiwanese athletes across 17 sports have qualified for the Games, it added.
To encourage people to stay active amid the local COVID-19 outbreak, the university said it has recorded 10 new videos in which professional coaches from the university demonstrate how to exercise at home.
The videos include sessions on weight training, stretching, jazz dancing and Latin aerobics, it said.
The nine Olympic athletes from NTNU, as well as Chen Yu-wei (陳又瑋), captain of the school’s men’s basketball team, appear in the videos, it said.
The quality of this latest series has been improved from a previous 24-episode program of online exercise videos the university launched on May 26 and ended on Monday last week, it said.
Those 24 videos, which were primarily aimed at encouraging the university’s students and faculty to exercise, have accumulated nearly 40,000 views, it said.
The first video in the new series premiered yesterday at www.youtube.com/c/ntnupelovesports.
During a break between workouts, a short clip of Tang discussing his training for the Olympics is featured.
A new episode is to be released every weekday at 4pm through Friday next week, the university said.
NTNU invites everyone to cheer for the nation’s athletes during the Olympics, the school said.
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 2:23pm today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was 5.4 kilometers northeast of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 34.9 km, according to the CWA. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was the highest in Hualien County, where it measured 2 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 1 in Yilan county, Taichung, Nantou County, Changhua County and Yunlin County, the CWA said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his