East Asian Cup (Football)

The Chinese Taipei men's national team is participating in the second round of the East Asian Cup in Hong Kong today. The tournament lasts until the ninth. They face against Australia, North Korea (opponent today), Guam, and Hong Kong. The winner moves on to the next round. Chinese Taipei's team is made mostly of players who participate in the domestic Intercity League. The two who don't play in China. The most capped player is goalkeeper Lu Kun-Chi at 23. Other players to watch are Chen Po-Liang, Chan Han, and the Lo twins (Lo Chih-En and Lo Chih-Ah). The captain from their previous match Xavier Chen currently is playing in his native Belgian league for his club KV Mechelen. The national team plays against North Korea today.

As for the women's team, they had their competition about a week ago. They finished third out of the four teams. They lost to Australia 7-0 and China 2-0. They beat Hong Kong 2-1. Lai Li-Ching scored both goals. Footage of their match against Australia can be found here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGM_gGGUWIU

Update-2012 Asian Baseball Championships

Chinese Taipei has played two games. They lost a close one to Japan 1-2 and then thrashed Phillippines 12-1. They were supposed to play China yesterday but it was rained out. That game has been moved to the third. Today they play Pakistan and tomorrow Korea.

This is a round robin tournament. So far Korea and Japan have yet to lose and thus they're in the driver's seat.

World Baseball Classic Qualifier Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlTFoTOTP94

Quick recap of Taiwan's 9-0 win over the Kiwis from last week.

This week: 2012 Asian Baseball Championship

This week the Taiwan national baseball team is back in action as they compete for the Asian Championships. Taiwan will serve as the host as Taichung, loacted in the northern part of the island, is the host city of the contest which starts on the 28th. Other teams making the field are the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, China and Pakistan. Taiwan will look to improve upon their runner up finish in Sapporo three years ago.

Japan is the favorite, and I expect them to medal with ease. My other prediction is that South Korea and Taiwan will duke it out for a place in the finals. China has an outside shot for a medal. And I will be surprised if Pakistan and the Philippines (who are using an almost new roster than the one they had at the World Baseball Classic Qualifier) aren't at the bottom of the competition.

Of note earlier this month, the under-15 national team won the Asian U-15 tournament in India. Congratulations!

Curling-5th Place

Taiwan finished fifth at the Pacific Asia Curling Championships with a record of 2 and 4. This matched their result from last year. After blasting Kazakhstan, they needed to beat Japan in order to force a tiebreaker for advancement into the semifinals. Down 5-3 going into the tenth end, Taiwan managed to tie. However in the extra end Japan responded back with 2 points and winning the match.

Three of Taiwan's losses came at the last end, showing just how close they were. They'll be back again next year where there's definite potential for them to climb the ranks.

'Family' ad

Source: http://www.zelmanstudios.com/blog/?p=968

Thanksgiving-It's a time for family!

Curling update

Right now Taiwan sits in fifth place with a 1-3 record at the 2012 Pacific Asian Curling Championships. Three of their games of come down to the last end. They beat the hosts New Zealand but lost to South Korea and Australia by the one margine. Taiwan has two more games, one against winless Kazakhstan and the other against Japan. Only the top 4 teams advance to bracket play, so Taiwan needs to make its move now!

Taiwanese tennis year in review (female)

Hsieh Su-Wei

 

2011 Year end rank: 172

2012 Current rank: 25

Doubles Rank: 25

What a year for Su-Wei! She won 2 WTA title and 3 ITF singles title. Along with that she won a doubles title each on the two circuits. She reached a career high ranking and is now the highest ranked Taiwanese player in history. Her original goal for the year was to qualify for the Olympics, and she did that raising her ranking more than a 100 places to achieve it. There is a lot more I want to say that I'll be writing another post of Su-Wei in the future.

Chang Kai-Chen (right)

 

2011 Year end rank: 142

2012 Current rank: 89

Doubles Rank: 78

Kai-Chen (affectionately known as KFC) had her best year end ranking thanks in part to a 28-26. She did better in doubles with a 19-8 record. She had disastrous results during the European clay and grass and the US hard court. At one point she was 5-16 during a six month period. She turned it around once the Asian circuit came. She reached the finals of 220K Osaka (losing in a thriller) and 125K Taipei. In addition, she won doubles titles at Kuala Lumpur, Washington DC, and ITF Ningbo.

Chan Yung-Jan

 

2011 Year end rank: 132

2012 Current rank: 103

Doubles Rank: 73

Yung-Jan had an up and down year with a record of 20-14 in singles and a 11-12 record in doubles. She only played 14 tournaments this year because of a surgery for the removal of a cyst sidelining her for the first part of the year. She also suffered dizziness at Guangzhou, ending her season prematurely in September. Her best results came from reaching the semifinal of Carlsbad and the final of ITF Beijing.  These helped her rise 29 places in the rankings. Here's hoping that next year she can maintain a full schedule and rise up in the ranks!

Chuang Chia-Jung (left)

 

Doubles Rank: 39

Chia-Jung won two WTA tour (Kuala Lumpur and Estoril) doubles titles this year, meaning she now has a total of 19 doubles title in her career. She raised her ranking up eight places and won $90,000 in prize money. She also qualified for the Olympics and at 27, she is now a well established doubles veteran on the tour.

Chan Hao-Ching (far left)

Doubles Rank: 50

Yung-Jan's younger sister rose about 60 places in the doubles rankings. She won ITF Quanzhou and WTA Taipei leading to a 24-18 record. She has also played with her sister at several events with the best result being the round of 16 at Roland Garros and a final at Pattaya City. Proving she belonged on the tour, she scored wins over double specialists Grandin, Uhilirova, Mattek-Sands, Mirza, Lee-Waters, and Moulton-Levy. She's only 19 and the future looks bright for her.

 

Honorable Mention:

Chan Chin-Wei-Singles winner at ITF Incheon and Doubles winner at ITF Taipei 2

Hsieh Shu-Ying (Su-Wei's younger sister)-Doubles winner at ITF Wenshan and ITF Karuizawa

 

Nike Advertisement

 

source: http://designyoutrust.com/2012/08/nike-i-taekwondo-i-tseng-li-cheng/

 

 

Fierce! This is Tseng Li-Cheng, the Asian featherweight champion and also winner of the bronze medal of the 2012 games. She's only 25 years old, so she should be around for another Olympic cycle!

Jeremy Lin Update

Probably the most famous Taiwanese American in sports right now, Jeremy Lin and his team the Houston Rockets played the LA Lakers tonight. Unfortunately, Houston suffered a 119-108 and falls to 4-6 on the year. Lin had a whopping 10 assists but was only 22% from the field.

Houston is a young time so hopefully they can keep growing and improving as the season progresses.

World Baseball Classic Qualification Final

Congratulations to the men in red and blue who qualified for the World Baseball Classic on Sunday. They defeated New Zealand 9-0. Their reward? They will be hosting the Netherlands, Australia, and South Korea in March. Hopefully their MLB players like Wei-Yin Chen will make themselves avaliable for the tournament.

World Baseball Classic Qualification

Taiwan is hosting the World Baseball Classic Qualifier number 4. They are in the finals today and will play against New Zealand, a team that they beat 10-0 in the preliminaries. Taiwan also beat the Phillippines 16-0 in the semifinals.

Next Week: Pacific-Asia Curling Championships

The 2012 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships takes place November 18 to 25 in Naseby, New Zealand. Taiwan will be represented with Randolph Shen being the skip for the fourth straight year. The Taiwanese team is based in Canada and hope to improve upon their fifth place finish from last year. Kazakhstan is making their debut this year.

For more info on the Taiwanese team go to this link:
http://www.curling.org/index.html

I'll be updating this blog throughout the week with results!

加油！！！加油！！！

Asian Gymnastics Wrap up

The Asian Gymnastics championships took place earlier this week. The Taiwanese men took seventh in the team competition. The women didn't send a full team.

Two men qualified for the individual final while no women qualified for any of the finals. Close calls came from Lin Tseng-Ning and Tsai Yi-An who finished ninth and tenth on the vault respectively.

In the individual finals, Chen Szu-Chien finished fifth on the pommel horse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1Mofexjeg&feature=share

His routine starts at around 45:38. Pretty solid-except his leg hitting the pommel at 46:02. He also threw in two triple Russians at the end of his routine, but the second one looked quite labored. Overall score of 14.

Chen Chih-Yu finished third place on the still rings. This adds to his bronze medal that he won at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. Pic here from the AGU website.