Singapore’s Darren Yap earns a bronze at first Asiad virtual taekwondo event

NAGOYA – A day after he picked up an unprecedented Asian Games taekwondo medal for Singapore, Darren Yap wrote another slice of history when he clinched at least another joint-bronze in the first Asiad virtual taekwondo mixed individual event on Oct 2.

In doing so, the unique feat of winning medals in both a physical and virtual event became a reality for him.

At the Toyohashi City General Gymnasium, the 22-year-old undergrad first beat Kyrgyzstan’s Alisher Asymbek Uluu 2-0 (660-0, 360-0) in the first round, and then Iran’s Amirsina Bakhtiari with another 2-0 (80-0, 580-20) win in the quarter-finals to be assured of another medal.

Yap will have a chance to upgrade to a better finish when he takes on Vietnam’s Chau Ngoc Tuyet Sang for a place in the final later in the day.

In virtual taekwondo, male and female athletes don virtual reality headgear and motion-tracking devices to take on virtual opponents. The aim is to score the highest level on their power gauge by the end of the time period.

However, the debut event also met with teething calibration and connection issues which led to a delay of around 20 minutes in the programme.

On Oct 1, Yap had secured a joint-bronze in the men’s individual poomsae when he tallied 9.0400 points from his recognised and freestyle poomsae routines to finish fourth behind South Korean Yun Lyu-sung (9.3800), Thai Navin Pinthasute (9.2800) and Filipino Derick Yape (9.0900).

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David Lee is senior sports correspondent at The Straits Times, focusing on aquatics, badminton, basketball, cue sports, football and table tennis.