2026 Asian Games: Taiwan snags another three medals

THREE BRONZES: Martial artists dominated Taiwan’s gains for Tuesday, while the baseball team delivered Thailand a thunderous 15-0 shellacking that morning

Taiwanese athletes at the Asian Games collected another three bronze medals yesterday, bringing their medals to nine, leaving them in 10th place overall as of yesterday evening, trailing Uzbekistan and leading Iran.

Taiwan’s baseball team roared back from a 5-0 defeat by South Korea on Monday to squash Thailand 15-0 as they head into their game today against Hong Kong at 6:30pm at the Games in Japan.

KARATE

Taiwan`s Chang-min Liu competes in the men’s wushu nangun final in Nagoya yesterday.

Photo: Reuters

The women’s team kata squad and men’s kumite competitor Chung Meng-yu won bronze medals yesterday.

The 34-year-old Chien Hui-hsuan, who won bronze in the women’s individual kata event on Sunday, was joined by 22-year-old Tien Hsin-erh and 23-year-old Hung Chih-hsuan for the team competition.

The Taiwanese trio defeated Macau by a 5-0 decision in the quarter-finals, but lost 5-0 to Vietnam in the semi-finals, sending them into a bronze-medal contest against Nepal.

Taiwan’s Chung Meng-yu spars India’s Chetan Bhatt in the bronze medal fight for the men’s karate kumite 84kg weight class in Toyohashi, Japan yesterday.

Photo: Reuters

They secured the medal with another unanimous 5-0 victory, earning Taiwan’s seventh medal of the Games and third in karate.

Kata is a demonstration of choreographed offensive and defensive movements before judges, unlike kumite, in which athletes face each other in sparring bouts.

Later yesterday, Chung added another bronze medal for Taiwan in the men’s kumite under-84kg division.

He lost 4-1 to Jordan’s Mohammad al-Jafari in the quarter-finals but remained in medal contention through repechage, which gives athletes defeated by finalists another route to a bronze-medal bout.

Chung faced India’s Chetan Bhatt for the medal, and their bout finished 1-1 at the end of regulation, but Chung was named the winner on “senshu,” meaning he scored a point using a valid scoring move before his opponent did.

Chung’s result gave Taiwan’s karate team their fourth bronze medal in three consecutive days of competition.

Chien opened the run with bronze in the women’s individual kata on Sunday, while Shih Cheng-chung claimed bronze in the men’s kumite under-67kg division on Monday.

WUSHU

Taiwanese wushu athlete Liu Chang-min won bronze in the men’s nanquan-nangun.

Competing at the Aichi Prefectural Martial Arts Hall, Liu scored 9.720 points in the nanquan portion during the morning session and 9.710 in the afternoon’s nangun routine. His combined score of 19.430 placed him third overall.

China’s Li Jianming won gold with 19.563 points, while Hong Kong’s Lau Chi Lung took silver with 19.456.

Taiwan’s Huang Wen-sheng narrowly missed the podium. Huang placed seventh in nanquan with 9.703 points before finishing second in nangun with 9.726, giving him a combined score of 19.429 — just 0.001 behind Liu.

Although Liu placed fifth in both portions of the competition, his consistent performances across the two routines were enough to secure bronze. The event’s final standings were determined by the athletes’ combined nanquan and nangun scores.

Liu’s bronze was Taiwan’s second wushu medal at this year’s Asian Games, following Johnny Sun’s silver in the men’s taijiquan and taijijian event on Monday.

BASEBALL

Taiwan rebounded from their opening loss to South Korea, routing Thailand 15-0 in six innings yesterday, improving to 1-1 in Group B.

Taiwan scored six runs in the first inning, including Chen Min-sih’s two-run homer, before Liu Ji-hong added another two-run shot in the second to extend the lead to 8-0.

Chen Hsiao-yun went 3-for-3 with three RBIs. His two-run hit with the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth gave Taiwan a 15-run lead and ended the game under the tournament’s run-ahead rule. Taiwan finished with 10 hits.

Three Taiwanese pitchers combined on a two-hit shutout.

Starter Huang Chieh-han allowed one hit over four innings, striking out two without issuing a walk, while Yu Tsung-ju gave up one hit and struck out two in the fifth. Wang Cheng-hao then retired all three batters he faced in the sixth.

Anuchit Lungloek and Nattapon Chaichuay were the only Thai batters to record hits, singling in the third and fifth innings respectively. Thailand did not draw a walk.

Taiwan face Hong Kong, who have already lost to Thailand, in their final preliminary-round game, seeking a top-two finish in Group B and a place in the super round.