ROC athletes bag 2 golds at Youth Olympic Games

2014-08-20

Taiwan’s Huang Huai-hsuan and Huang Yu-jen won taekwondo gold medals Aug. 18 in the women’s under-49 kilogram and men’s under-55 kilogram classes, respectively, at the second summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, mainland China.

The two golds were added to a haul of a silver and a bronze won by Taekwondo athletes Wang Chen-yu and Chen Zih-ting, respectively, the previous day.

Huang Huai-hsuan left her coach on tenterhooks until the final minutes, almost unable to compete because of a stomachache right before the bout. “I told myself I had to win the country’s first gold,” the 18-year-old athlete from Taoyuan County said. In the final she got revenge on Indra Craen from Belgium, who defeated her in the March qualifiers.

“Winning will only push me to go further and make me train harder,” Huang Huai-hsuan added.

Huang Yu-jen was confident entering the finals, having already taken top spot at the qualifiers. Gold in hand, his ambition in facing the adults at the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, in September is simple. “I want to get another gold,” he said.

To compliment their medals, Sports Administration Director-General Ho Jow-fei and Chinese Taipei Olympics Committee President Lin Hong-dow passed on congratulatory letters from President Ma Ying-jeou to the winners. They also gave US$1,000 to all medalists.

Team general manager Liao Yu-hui gave each medal winner a further cash prize of US$500 and a certificate for the not-yet-available iPhone 6.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=220777&ctNode=445)