Taiwanese para table tennis player Cheng Ming-chih won silver on Tuesday in the men’s singles event at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
Cheng missed the gold after losing to Tommy Urhaug of Norway 11-5, 7-11, 11-7, 7-11, 9-11 in a thrilling Class TT5 men’s singles final.
Cheng’s coach, Lin Chia-jung, said that she and Cheng trained solidly and had no time off for winter and summer vacations during the last three years of preparation for the Paralympics.
Photo: AP
“The hard training paid off,” Lin said, adding that Cheng defeated China’s Rio Paralympics gold medalist Cao Ningning in the quarter-finals and then Serbian player Mitar Palikuca in the semi-finals.
However, in the gold medal match, it was Urhaug who came out on top.
Lin said that despite the result being a bit disappointing, the two had done their best and “I am happy I get to coach him.”
Photo: AP
Cheng said it was his first medal in the Paralympic men’s singles TT5 event.
He would like to thank his coach and family for their relentless support, Cheng added.
Lin, in particular, was crucial to his success, as she trained with him a lot and helped boost his mental toughness before the games, he said.
“She has been with me for many years, and she supports me in every move I make on the court,” he added.
Cheng, 45, and fellow Taiwanese player Lin Yen-hung won a silver medal in the men’s team TT5 event at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
However, Cheng did not win a medal at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in 2021.
Cheng, who has played table tennis since he was a child and used to be a coach at an elementary school, became a national para table tennis athlete after losing his left leg in a car accident when he was 32.
He was on top of the International Table Tennis Federation Para Table Tennis Ranking List’s Men class 5 in 2020.
Brighton & Hove Albion’s in-form Kaoru Mitoma yesterday returned to the Japan squad as Hajime Moriyasu’s side eye an eighth straight appearance at the FIFA World Cup. Japan face China at home on Thursday next week and Bahrain away five days later to start the decisive third round of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The 27-year-old winger Mitoma has not featured for Japan since the AFC Asian Cup in Qatar in January, when injury restricted him to two substitute appearances. He was ruled out for the rest of last season after he returned to Brighton, but he has started the new
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Polish partner Jan Zielinski on Saturday survived a tough 90-minute round-of-16 match to advance to the mixed doubles quarter-finals of the US Open and stay in contention for a third Grand Slam title, while Jannik Sinner stormed into the last 16 as fellow world No. 1 Iga Swiatek stayed on course for a second New York triumph. Seventh seeds and Australian Open winners Hsieh and Zielinksi took 1 hour, 29 minutes to beat Mexico’s Giuliana Olmos and Santiago Gonzalez 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 10-6. Hsieh, 38, and Zielinski, 27, are eyeing their third Grand Slam title this year, after
HOMETOWN HERO: The Taichung Sports Bureau said it would award Lin NT$600,000 plus a NT$50,000 appearance award for her performance in Paris Taiwan’s Lin Tzu-yu and Tian Shiau-wen late on Saturday won the silver medal in the table tennis women’s doubles WD20 class at the Paris Paralympics, winning Taiwan’s second medal of this year’s games. The top-seeded duo missed the gold, losing to Australia’s Lei Li Na and Yang Qian in the 29-minute final in South Paris Arena 4. Lin and Tian struggled to adjust early in the match, losing the first two games 7-11 and 6-11. Although they fought back to win the third game 11-3 and took the lead in the fourth game, they were unable to take advantage of their game point
Luis Diaz starred on Sunday as Liverpool routed archrivals Manchester United 3-0 to extend their perfect start under new manager Arne Slot, while Chelsea suffered fresh frustration in a 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace. Hired from Feyenoord to succeed Juergen Klopp in the close-season, Slot has overseen three successive wins in a flying start to the new era at Liverpool. The Reds sit second in the English Premier League, behind champions Manchester City on goals scored, after handing United an embarrassing loss that finished with thousands of empty seats at Old Trafford. Diaz and Mohamed Salah were United’s chief tormentors as the Liverpool