Taiwanese table tennis player yesterday Tien Shiau-wen won the nation’s first medal at the Tokyo Paralympic Games: a bronze in the women’s singles class 10 event.
The 21-year-old first-time Paralympian began the day with a 3-1 victory against Merve Cansu Demir of Turkey in the quarter-finals.
In the semi-finals, she met the bronze medalist at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Bruna Costa Alexandre of Brazil.
Photo courtesy of the Kaoshiung Sports Development Bureau
Tien won the first game 14-12, but Costa Alexandre came back to clinch the following three games 11-6, 12-10 and 11-7, winning the match and securing herself a place in the gold medal match scheduled for tomorrow.
Tien’s coach, Tsai Kuei-lan, on Friday said that Tien exceeded expectations when she won all three of her group matches, and she never showed the stage fright that many athletes experience when competing in their first major event.
Tien was the only one of the four Taiwanese table tennis players to reach a medal match at the Tokyo Games, after three others were eliminated on Friday.
From Wednesday, she is to compete in the women’s class 9-10 team event with Lin Tzu-yu.
Class 6-10 are standing classes in table tennis at the Paralympics, while class 1-5 are sitting classes for players in wheelchairs.
Taiwan sent of 10 athletes to the Tokyo Paralympics and several of them have finished competition, including a six-time Paralympian, 45-year-old powerlifter Lin Ya-hsuan, who finished seventh in the women’s under-61kg weight class.
Also yesterday, 30-year-old Liu Ya-ting finished sixth in the women’s standing javelin final with a distance of 32.44m, her best of the season.
In swimming, 19-year-old Chen Liang-da is to race today and tomorrow.
With badminton matches to begin on Wednesday, 22-year-old Fang Jen-yu is to compete in the men’s singles SU5 event for athletes who can stand, but have an upper limb impairment.
Taiwan won a back-and-forth match at the Unions Cup in Singapore yesterday, but the hosts claimed the trophy due to a better points differential over the tournament. Singapore’s players celebrated with the cup, despite losing a match in which they seized the lead three times, but ultimately fell to a 19-16 defeat. Their points advantage was due to their strong opening game against the other team in the competition, Thailand, who they beat 30-8 on Saturday last week. Taiwan narrowly lost to Thailand on Tuesday and went into yesterday’s match facing a steep challenge. They responded well, opening the game with sustained pressure
An “outstanding” 17-year-old Chinese badminton player died of cardiac arrest after collapsing on court during a tournament in Indonesia, officials said yesterday. Zhang Zhijie was playing a match late Sunday against Japan’s Kazuma Kawano at the Badminton Asia Junior Championships in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The score was 11-11 in the first game when Zhang fell to the floor between points. The teenager received treatment at the venue and was rushed to hospital in an ambulance, but passed away later that night after repeated efforts to resuscitate him failed. “Medical conclusions ... indicated that the victim experienced sudden cardiac arrest,” Broto Happy, spokesman for
A buzz of excitement crackled through the hushed arena as the rider gripped the reins of her stuffed steed. Welcome to the strangely exacting world of hobby-horsing, the Finnish sport guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Immaculately coiffed equestrians leap athletically over fences just like in horse jumping, going as fast as they can against the clock straddling their stick steeds. Things are more stately in the dressage, with riders trotting their stick horses with intricately decorated stuffed heads before the discerning eyes of the judges. About 260 riders from 22 countries — most women and girls aged 10 to 20 —
Taiwan’s men’s national basketball team is set to upgrade its depth in the paint after signing Brandon Gilbeck of the P.League+’s Formosa Dreamers to a naturalized player’s contract. The 27-year-old big man from the US landed in Taoyuan early on Monday, where he was welcomed by Chinese Taipei Basketball Association deputy secretary-general Chang Cheng-chung. The two signed the deal, which still has to be approved by the Sports Administration and the Ministry of the Interior. Chang said he is confident that “the proceedings would go smoothly.” If approved, Gilbeck would become the third naturalized basketball player in Taiwan, following the New Taipei Kings’ Quincy