Taiwan wins 1st swimming gold in Hong Kong
Taiwan swimmer Cheng Wan-jung cracked Japan and China’s dominance in the pool at the 2009 East Asian Games in Hong Kong by winning the gold medal in the women’s 400-meter individual medley event Dec. 10.
Cheng, a student at National Taiwan University, beat out her Chinese rival Liu Jing by 0.13 seconds to win the race with a time of 4:40.21. In the process, she set a new East Asian Games record that had stood for 16 years.
The gold medal marked Taiwan’s first at a major Asian tournament since Tsai Shu-min won the 200-meter women’s freestyle event at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, Thailand.
After racing in the preliminary heat in the morning, Cheng got off to a slow start in the final race. She trailed in fourth place after the first 100 meters following the butterfly stroke portion of the race. However, she was able to turn it around during the breaststroke to take the lead after 300 meters.
Cheng’s coach said afterwards that, “I intentionally wanted her to take it easy during the butterfly stage of the race so that she could increase her speed during the breast stroke.” The strategy paid off as Cheng was able to hold onto her lead during the final stretch to claim victory.
Taiwan athletes also shone on the tennis court Dec. 10, taking home three golds and two silvers on the day. Contributing to the medal haul were Chuang Jia-jung, grabbing gold in both the women’s doubles and mixed doubles events, and 18-year-old Chang Kai-chen, snatching gold in the women’s singles event. Both players were representing the nation for the first time at a major competition.
Except for the men’s singles event, Taiwan players took part in all five of the gold medal matches scheduled for the day. In mixed doubles, with Chuang Chia-jung and Yi Chu-huan scored the gold while Hsieh Su-wei and Lee Hsin-han took the silver.
The most notable match of the day was the women’s singles finals between Chang Kai-chen and her mainland Chinese opponent Zhang Shuai. The match was billed as a “cross-strait battle between rising stars.”
The match did not begin well for Chang, who dropped the first set. She was able to turn things around in the second, pulling ahead 5-4 and then 6-5 before going on to win the tiebreaker to take the set 7-6. Chang sustained the momentum into the final set to trounce Zhang 6-2 and claim the gold.
In women’s doubles, defending champion Chuang teamed up with new partner Hsieh Su-wei to take on South Korea’s Kim So-jung and Lee Jin-a. The Taiwan duo, ranked in the top 30 in the world, easily disposed of their unseeded opponents 6-0, 6-3 to take home the gold medal. (SB)
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