Taiwan's men archery team won the silver medal yesterday after being defeated by South Korea by seven points, 244-251, in the finals of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Earlier in the day the team had beaten the US 244-243 to advance to the finals.
PHOTO: AP
The baseball team, however, had little to feel happy about after losing to Japan 4-3 in overtime.
But it was a very different story at the Panathinaiko Stadium, the home of the first modern Games in 1896 and the venue for archery at this year's Olympics.
"We are in excellent condition, and our archers just act consistently according to the tempo set during their practices, and ignore other external factors, even our opponents," said archery team coach Lin Cheng-hsien (林政賢).
To stabilize the athletes' mindset and avoid last-minute collapses, Lin repeatedly reminded his archers to "trust your-self, believe in yourself."
The three young archers, 23-year-old Chen Szu-yuan (陳詩園), 19-year-old Liu Ming-huang (劉明煌) and 17-year-old Wang Cheng-pang (王正邦), did not perform well at the beginning of the match, but suc-ceeded in dealing with the pressure and reviving their fighting spirit.
The crucial point in the competition was in the third round, when the US fell three points behind the Taiwan team. Wang and Liu secured an unassailable lead by scoring 28 points with their last three shots.
Meanwhile, the baseball team played a good game against Japan's professional all-stars, which has been described as the strongest team among the eight teams in competition.
Both Taiwan's starting pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民), who plays on the Yankee's triple A team, and Japanese starter Koji Uehara, who plays for the Tokyo Giants, suppressed batters in the first two innings.
In the third inning, Chen Chin-feng (
Both teams were runless for the next three innings.
Wang gave up four hits in the seventh, including Yoshinobu Takahashi's two-run homer which tied the game. Tsao Chin-hui (曹錦輝), who plays in Colorado Rockies, then replaced Wang on the pitcher's mound and struck out Norihiro Nakamura to end the inning.
Neither team was able to score in the eighth and ninth innings and the game went into overtime.
In the top of the tenth, Cheng Chang-ming (鄭昌明) hit a single off of Japan's closer Hiroki Kuroda and advanced to second base on Chen Chih-yuan's (陳致遠) sacrifice bunt.
But Taiwan failed to capitalize and the inning ended when Peng Cheng-min (彭政閩) struckout.
In the bottom of tenth, Japan got the bases loaded with just one out, and Michihiro Ogasawara hit a flyball to deep left field off closer Yang Chien-fu (
"The whole team performed their best," said head coach Hsu Sheng-min (
With two wins and four losses, Taiwan's only hope of making it into the semifinals is if it beats the Netherlands today and Australia loses its two last games.
Also See Stories:
Pinsent and crew take rowing honors
Tennis medal hopefuls fight today
Japan celebrates record Judo gold medal haul: 8
Doping spoils the Olympic party for Greece and Russia
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS