The military yesterday dispatched four fighter jets to welcome a group of Olympians back to Taiwan to thank the nation’s athletes competing in this year’s record-breaking Tokyo Games.
Taiwan this year has posted its best-ever Olympic result with 11 total medals thus far — two golds, four silvers and five bronzes — more than doubling its previous record of five medals in 2000 and 2004.
To celebrate the achievement, the Ministry of National Defense said it was instructed by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to dispatch four Mirage 2000 jets to escort the athletes flying home on a China Airlines charter flight.
Photo: Military News Agency via CNA
On the new Airbus A350 plane were gold medal winners Lee Yang (李洋) and Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟), who on Saturday bested China in the men’s doubles badminton final, and Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎), who on Sunday took silver in the women’s badminton singles.
Also on the flight were fellow badminton players world No. 4 Chou Tien-chen (周天成) and world No. 11 Wang Tzu-wei (王子維), as well as coaches and support staff.
The four Mirage jets took off from Hsinchu Air Base to meet the athletes’ flight in the air before it touched down at 5:11pm.
Photo: CNA
The jets also set off a series of flares on either side of the plane for the athletes to enjoy, which were captured by Wang Chi-lin, Wang Tzu-wei and Tai in their Instagram stories.
“It is our great honor to welcome back these national heroes,” the ministry said, adding that the gesture was intended to thank all the athletes representing Taiwan at the Games, as well as show government and public support for sports.
The ministry made a similar gesture in 2018, when F-16 jets were dispatched to escort and set off flares for Taiwan’s athletes returning from the Jakarta Palembang Asian Games.
It also follows a wish voiced by the president as early as 2019 to welcome the nation’s athletes back from the Tokyo Olympics with an F-16 escort.
Representatives from the Sports Administration and Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, as well as China Airlines and EVA Airways staff, also lined up to welcome the badminton team at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with banners and cheers.
Additional reporting by Chen Hsin-yu and CNA
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS