Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) won a gold medal in the women’s featherweight division at the Olympics on Saturday in Paris, boosting Team Taiwan’s medal count to two golds and five bronzes.
The medal count is the third time Taiwan has won two golds in a single edition of the Olympic Games.
Lin, 28, clinched the gold in the women’s 57kg boxing division after defeating Julia Szeremeta of Poland by a 5-0 unanimous decision, completing a long journey to success after she was eliminated from the Tokyo Games three years ago in her opening bout.
Photo: AP
Taiwan’s other gold in Paris was bagged by the badminton duo of Lee Yang (李洋) and Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) in the men’s doubles.
Lee and Yang defeated China’s Wang Chang (王昶) and Liang Weikeng (梁偉鏗) in the final on Aug. 4, becoming the first men’s doubles team in Olympic Games history to win back-to-back titles. The Taiwanese duo won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Team Taiwan’s performance peaked at the 2020 Tokyo Games (held in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic) with two golds, four silvers and six bronzes. The two golds were won in men’s doubles badminton and women’s 59kg weightlifting.
The 2004 Athens Olympics was another milestone, with Taiwanese athletes winning their first gold medals — one each in men’s and women’s taekwondo — two silver’s and one bronze.
Taiwanese breakdancer Sun Chen (孫振) on Saturday was eliminated at the Olympics’ first breaking event after he failed to advance to the quarter-final by finishing third in the group event.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese golfer Hsu Wei-ling (徐薇淩) shot a four-under-par 68 on Saturday, ending with a five-under-par 283 over four rounds, tied for 8th place, the best performance among Taiwanese female golfers in the competition.
Chien Pei-yun (錢珮芸) carded a four-under-par 68 on Saturday, finishing with a two-under-par 286, and tied for 18th place.
On the last day of the Paris Olympics yesterday, there were still events including track and field, basketball, freecycling, handball, modern pentathlon and other events on the schedule.
However, the Taiwan team concluded all its Olympics competitions on Saturday.
The 2028 Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles.
SEASONAL MORATORIUM: The boat was boarded and seized by the China Coast Guard east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay outside restricted waters on July 2 Four crew members of a Taiwanese fishing vessel detained by Chinese authorities since July 2 are expected to be released today, but the return dates of the captain and the boat remain uncertain, a former official said. The Fujian Provincial People’s Government’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) is likely to first release the crew members today, including a Taiwanese surnamed Ting (丁) and three Indonesians, former Penghu County Council deputy speaker Chen Shuang-chuan (陳雙全) said yesterday. They are to take a boat to the median line of the Taiwan Strait, where they would be picked up by the Da Jin Man No. 96
China appears to be using a new type of BZK-005 drone that might be capable of disrupting the radio communications in the Taiwanese military and causing the radar system to malfunction, a military source said yesterday. The military is closely monitoring traces of this upgraded drone after the Japanese Ministry of Defense recently captured images of a BZK-005 drone, which had a large number of antennas under the nose of the aircraft and a pod of unknown purpose attached under the belly of the craft. Defense experts in other countries had warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has bolstered
CHAMPION: Lin Yu-ting overcame adversity and intense international scrutiny on her path to Olympic victory. She said it means so much to win the gold for her country Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) emerged as Olympic champion in the women’s 57kg (featherweight) division on Saturday in Paris (Sunday in Taipei), despite facing online abuse due to gender misconceptions over the past two weeks. Lin defeated Julia Szeremeta of Poland by a unanimous 5-0 decision to clinch the gold, completing a long journey of redemption after being eliminated from the Tokyo Games in 2021 in her opening bout. Lin, who has been competing in women’s events since her boxing debut in September 2013, is the first Taiwanese boxer to win gold, after three other Taiwanese female boxers earned bronze medals in
MESSAGE TO THE WORLD: A letter by overseas Taiwanese organizations also called on the international community to ‘support democracy’ by opposing Chinese pressure Twenty-four overseas Taiwanese organizations in a joint letter urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to stop infringing on spectators’ freedom of speech and allow them to display Taiwan signage. The letter, addressed to IOC president Thomas Bach and members of the IOC executive board, was led by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), along with 23 other overseas Taiwanese organizations from the US, Japan, Europe, Argentina and Costa Rica. During the Olympic games, signs or items with the words “Taiwan” on them have been snatched away by Olympic security staff or Chinese spectators. Some spectators holding such signs have been forcibly