Taiwan’s roller skating team were the World Games heroes again yesterday as Huang Yu-ting (黃郁婷) followed her gold in Friday’s 300m speed race with another victory in the 1,000m final.
Huang crossed the line in a time of 1:51.733, with teammate Hsu Chiao-jen (許巧人) just 0.22 seconds behind as Hsu picked up her second silver of the Games at the Yangming Skating Rink.
Pan Yi-chin (潘怡蓁) then made it one medal of each kind for the day when she secured a bronze in the 15,000m elimination event, finishing just half a second behind gold medalist Woo Hyo-sook of South Korea, with Huang and Hsu finishing well down the field.
PHOTO: AFP
The successes took Taiwan’s medal haul for the first two days to three golds, two silvers and a bronze — second place in the medal table behind Russia.
The three golds also mean Taiwan has surpassed its total of two golds from the last World Games in Duisburg, Germany, in 2005.
In the men’s 1,000m race, however, Lo Wei-lin (駱威霖) failed to emulate Huang’s double gold, finishing sixth, with teammate Chang Chiao-hao (張家豪) one place in front in fifth. Lo then grabbed another sixth spot in the men’s 15,000m elimination race.
At Lotus Lake, Taiwan couldn’t repeat the successes of Friday in the windswept conditions yesterday. They finished in fourth position in both the 500m and 1,000m dragon boat races.
Russia won first place in both events, making a clean sweep of all four dragon boat races.
Taiwan’s second game in the korfball preliminary round was also a tough battle. Facing powerhouse Belgium at the Kaohsiung Normal University gym, Taiwan went down to a heavy 30-16 defeat.
In the men’s sport climbing at Shoushan Junior High School, Taiwan’s Lee En-chih lost in the men’s quarter-final to China’s Zhong Qixin, the first Chinese athlete to show up for an event since the Chinese team’s boycott of the opening ceremony on Thursday evening.
In the women’s event, Lee Hung-ying also lost to a Chinese athlete, going down to He Cuilian in the women’s semi-finals.
Earlier in the day, Kaohsiung Senior High School Gymnasium was packed to capacity for the openweight sumo competition, which produced some comic match ups of David and Goliath proportions.
The best showing from a Taiwanese athlete came from Cheng Chiu-jung, who lost to Yuka Ueta of Japan in the women’s semi-finals repechage.
In gymnastics at the Kaohsiung Arena, Taiwan’s Lai Ying-tzu failed to trouble the medal table as eastern Europeans dominated the Ribbon and Ball event, with Eugenia Kanaeva taking gold for Russia in both events.
Taiwanese athletes also finished well down the scoreboard in orienteering, with Sie Wan-jyun and Chen Chieh finishing 29th and 30th respectively in the middle distance womens event at Chengching Lake. The men fared no better, with Chen Cheng-hsiung finishing 28th and Wu Ming-yen coming in last in 32nd position.
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