Taiwan Today

Taekwondo athlete Tseng Pei-hua defeated her South Korean opponent with an attack to the head in the last five seconds of the women’s 59-kilogram championship match Dec. 7 and took home Taiwan’s second gold medal at the East Asian Games in Hong Kong. Taiwan won a total of six medals in taekwondo that day, including silvers by Tseng Yi-hsuan in the women’s 55-kg division, Chang Chiung-fang in the women’s 63-kg category, and Tseng Ching-hsiang in the men’s 72-kg event. Lo Tsung-jui and Tseng Kuan-chieh also grabbed bronze medals in the men’s 67-kg and 62-kg categories, respectively. Tseng Pei-hua’s gold medal performance marked her first victory at a major tournament in four years. It also represented a changing of the guard of sorts in Taiwan women’s taekwondo after years of heroine Su Li-wen being in the spotlight. Su retired shortly after her inspiring performance at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and took a teaching position at a local university where she now trains up-and-coming national taekwondo athletes. Earlier this year, Tseng grabbed Taiwan’s only bronze medal at the 2009 World Taekwondo Championships held in Copenhagen, Denmark in mid-October. However, her victory Dec. 7 proved once and for all that she has the ability to challenge for the top spot in her sport on the international stage. Speaking after the match, Tseng mentioned that in the past she had often felt inclined to quit once falling behind in a duel. However, she said that her coach has helped her over the past year to improve her ability to deal with pressure and get stronger and that she now refuses to give up until the match is over. Her coach Liu Ching-wen noted that the taekwondo coaching staff had predicted that Tseng would win a gold medal at the East Asian Games but that the victory was still extremely thrilling. Liu added that she still has to work on improving her secondary attack as well as enhancing her adaptability and judgment skills to become even stronger in the future. In the Dec. 7 match, Tseng was trailing 2-1 with less than 10 seconds remaining. After feigning an attack to draw her South Korean opponent Lee Sung Hye toward her as the clock ticked down, Tseng quickly retreated and unleashed a beautifully timed attack to the head that earned her two points and a 3-2 triumph to claim the gold medal. (SB)