Karateka Gu Shiau-shuang (谷筱霜) on Tuesday received a hero’s welcome from Bunun elders upon returning to Taiwan after winning a gold medal at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
Gu, 26, captured Taiwan’s 19th and final gold medal of the Games on Sunday, and was among the last group of Taiwanese athletes to return on an EVA Air flight from Hangzhou on Tuesday.
To celebrate her victory, more than 40 residents of Dili Village (地利) in Nantou’s Xinyi Township (信義) made the four-hour drive to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, where they greeted Gu on her arrival at 11pm with a rendition of Malastapang, a Bunun song of achievements.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Gu told reporters how nervous she felt ahead of her gold medal bout against Moldir Zhangbyrbay of Kazakhstan in the women’s 50kg kumite.
“I had waited five years to be on that big stage,” she said.
After falling behind 5-0 at the start of the three-minute contest, she remembered the advice of her coach to “never give up, as long as there is time on the clock, because it only takes one second to score a point,” she said.
Gu fought her way back, scoring five points in the last 62 seconds and was ultimately awarded the gold by a jury decision.
Gu’s father, Gu An-chang (古安昌), who was at the airport with a bouquet of flowers, said he had spoken with his daughter just before the final.
He said: “Don’t worry, I’m sure that gold medal is yours.”
Gu, who also won gold at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, said earlier this year that the Hangzhou Games would be her final international competition and that she planned to become a coach.
Taiwan won 67 medals at this year’s Asian Games — 19 golds, 20 silvers and 28 bronzes — smashing the goal of 10 golds set by the Sports Administration and marking the team’s best Asian Games haul since 1998.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS