Sophiyah Liu (劉柏君), Taiwan’s first female baseball umpire, is to receive a special commendation at the Sports Elite Awards next month for her dedication to achieving gender equality in sports, the Sports Administration said.
Liu, 43, “has dedicated herself to issues related to sports diplomacy and gender equality in sports. Aside from publishing the Woman in Sports magazine, she has been raising funds to help female teenage athletes from underprivileged families obtain comfortable sports underwear,” the agency said in a statement.
Liu has advocated for gender equality in speeches on school campuses and in public, it said, adding that she hosted a workshop to teach child and teenage athletes about the importance of maintaining physical boundaries and protecting themselves.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Liu became Taiwan’s first baseball umpire when she was 27.
She told the Chinese-language Commonwealth Parenting Magazine in April that her bid to join the baseball varsity team in her junior-high school was rejected simply because she was a girl.
Because of her reported ability to communicate with spirits, Liu worked as a medium at a temple during high school. Her experience inspired the HBO Asia TV series The Teenage Psychic.
While studying at the National Taipei University, she began working as a volunteer at baseball games.
She said she majored in social work at university, because “a spirit medium and a social worker both exist to help people.”
Liu, who experienced domestic violence, worked at the Garden of Hope Foundation to help women and children experiencing domestic abuse to find jobs and resources.
She established the Taiwan Sport Forward Foundation, which helps student athletes in rural areas by providing tutoring, paying for their after-school study programs or offering financial aid.
Liu said that the foundation is a combination of her love of baseball and her experience as a social worker.
Liu was selected to participate in the Global Sports Mentoring Program in 2017 and was chosen by Forbes magazine in 2018 as one of the 25 most powerful women in international sports.
Liu converted to Islam in her 20s, and has said that reading the Koran “makes her calm” and “has changed her life.”
Meanwhile, former Republic of China Sports Federation chairman Chang Chao-kuo (張朝國) is to receive a lifetime achievement award in sports for his contribution to the development of weightlifting in Taiwan at all levels of education.
“Taiwanese weightlifters won four gold medals, two silvers and four bronzes over six Olympic Games. Chang definitely deserves credit for such an extraordinary achievement,” the Sports Administration said.
The agency is to announce the winners of the Best Female Athlete, Best Male Athlete, Best Coach, Best Sports Team, Best Rookie and Best Sports Spirit Awards in a ceremony on Dec. 9, it added.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
RSS