Taiwanese Olympian Wang Kuan-hung yesterday qualified for tonight’s men’s 200m butterfly final at the World Aquatics Championships, squeezing into the top eight with a time of 1 minute, 54.97 seconds.
Earlier in the day, he finished fourth overall in the qualifying heats with a time of 1:55.17, 0.96 seconds behind Japanese Olympic silver medalist Tomoru Honda.
The 21-year-old Taiwanese won a silver medal in the men’s 200m butterfly at the FINA Swimming World Cup meet in Singapore on Nov. 16, 2018, with a time of 1:52.38, and in 2019 won a silver medal in the men’s 200m butterfly at the Toyota US Open Championships in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1:55.82.
Photo: Reuters
He also won bronze medals in the 200m butterfly at last year’s Swimming World Cup meets in Berlin and Toronto, finishing in 1:51.04 and 1:51.15 respectively, and competed for Taiwan at the Tokyo Olympics.
French star Leon Marchand swam second-fastest in yesterday’s semi-final in 1:54.21, easing into the final a day after smashing Michael Phelps’ last remaining world record.
Marchand won the men’s 400m individual medley on the opening night of competition on Friday, coming home in 4:02.50, more than a second off Phelps’ benchmark of 4:03.84.
Photo: AFP
Set at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it was the longest-held world record in swimming.
Also yesterday, Britain’s Matthew Richards won the men’s 200m freestyle title in 1:44.30, Lithuania’s Ruta Meilutyte won the women’s 100m breaststroke title in 1:04.62 and American Ryan Murphy won the men’s 100m backstroke final in 52.22 seconds.
It was the US’ second gold medal of the night, after Katie Ledecky won the women’s 1,500m freestyle earlier in the evening.
Australian Kaylee McKeown took home the women’s 100m backstroke title in 57.53 seconds, beating Regan Smith of the US on 57.78 and American Katharine Berkoff on 58.25.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book