Taiwan bags 3rd gold at Youth Olympic Games

2014-08-21

Weightlifter Chiang Nien-hsin, a 17-year-old Bunun girl, added a third gold for Taiwan in the women’s under-58 kilogram class Aug. 19 at the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, mainland China.

“I never thought I could get a gold medal,” Chiang said. The lifter lost at the same venue during the Asian Youth Games last year after injuring her hand while competing. This year, she returned to Nanjing determined to win.

“She practiced so hard that the blisters on her right hand broke and bled,” coach Wu Tsai-fu said. “She told me that she had to win, because she could not fail people’s expectations.”

Chiang's closest competitor, Anastasia Petrova of Russia, failed at 90 kilograms in the third round of the snatch, setting for 85 kg from her second round. She cleared 110 kg in the clean and jerk.

A more measured approach saw Chiang finish at 88 kg on the snatch. Her combined total of 203 kg included a final lift of 115 kg in the clean and jerk, breaking the national women’s youth record of 112 kg she had set herself.

Chiang stayed calm and focused during the competition. “I told myself not to think too much, just treat it as another practice to avoid putting pressure on myself.”

“She is a quiet and introverted athlete,” said Tsai Wen-yee, who won a bronze for Taiwan in men’s weightlifting at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He discovered Chiang when she was a first year junior high school student in Kaohsiung City’s mountainous Taoyuan district. “She followed my training regime to the best of her ability.”

Like Taiwan’s two other gold medal winners the day before, Chiang received US$1,500 in cash and a voucher for the not-yet-available iPhone 6 from Sports Administration Director-General Ho Jow-fei, Chinese Taipei Olympics Committee President Lin Hong-dow and the team’s general manager Liao Yu-hui.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=220833&CtNode=413)