Taiwanese archer takes silver in Dakar

ON TARGET: The teenaged archer was narrowly defeated to take silver, the best finish a male Taiwanese athlete has achieved in recurve archery in the Youth Games

Seventeen-year-old Chen Pin-an on Sunday won a silver medal in the men’s recurve event at this year’s Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal, becoming Taiwan’s first male archer to secure a podium finish at the Games, while Lai Yi-chen took bronze in women’s taekwondo.

Chen, a member of the Chinese Enterprise Archery League’s Chinese Taipei Archery Association youth team, lost 4-6 against France’s Mael Lamouret in the final.

The Taiwanese teenager advanced to the elimination rounds as the top seed, after scoring 688 points in the qualification round, and defeated South Korea’s Lee Ji-ho 6-4 in the semi-finals to reach the final.

Chen Pin-an took silver in the recurve archery event in this year’s Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal, on Sunday.

Photo: CNA

In the gold medal match, Chen trailed 3-5 after four sets. The fifth and final set ended in a 28-28 tie, earning each archer one set point and sealing a 6-4 victory for Lamouret.

“I feel a bit of regret, because I didn’t execute the final shot well, but I’ve improved compared to where I was before,” Chen said after the match.

Chen, who has been training in archery since elementary school, said he was delighted to win an individual medal at the Youth Olympics and hoped to qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

With his second-place finish in the men’s recurve event, Chen became the second Taiwanese competitor overall to achieve that feat, following Tan Ya-ting’s silver in the women’s recurve at the inaugural 2010 Singapore Youth Olympics, and the first male Taiwanese archer to win a Youth Olympic medal.

Chen has emerged as one of Taiwan’s top young archers this year in the domestic Chinese Enterprise Archery League season, defeating Deng Yu-cheng and Cheng Hsiang-hui, who represented Taiwan at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and this year at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, respectively.

Chen’s coach, Lin Shih-chia, praised his performance while saying there was still room for improvement.

“Pin-an has the ability and performed well in the competition,” Lin said. “His technique is not yet fully developed or consistent, but overall, I would give him 100 points.”

Separately, taekwondo athlete Lai won bronze in the women’s under-44kg division, after the semi-final match against Russia’s Elina Tkhamokova, who prevailed 2-0.