Taiwan scores 3 golds, 3 silvers, 1 bronze at international kettlebell event

Taipei, Sept. 18 (CNA) Three Taiwanese kettlebell lifters bagged a total of three gold, three silver and one bronze medals for Taiwan at an international kettlebell lifting championship last week.

All three Taiwanese lifters competed at the International Union of Kettlebell Lifting (IUKL) World Championships in various disciplines, held in Khiva, Uzbekistan, from Sept. 7-12.

At the IUKL championships, Tseng Yung-lin (曾詠麟) took part in the 95-kilogram weight class to rake in a gold at the biathlon event, a silver at the snatch event, another silver at the long cycle event and a bronze at the jerk event.

Hu Chia-wei (胡家維), meanwhile, competed in the 78kg weight class and won a gold at the biathlon and a silver at long cycle.

Chu Chang-min (朱澄珉) also secured a gold medal at the long cycle event when he was competing in the 95kg weight class.

Speaking with CNA, Tseng, who is also the incumbent chairman of the Taiwan Kettlebell Sport Association, explained that a kettlebell lifting biathlon event requires athletes to repeatedly pull two kettlebells within the span of 10 minutes.

As the event totals the amount of snatch per 10-minute-cycle with the amount of jerk per 10-minute-cycle, the person with the greatest number of pulls accumulated within the 20-minute time frame will be crowned the winner, Tseng said.

As per competition regulation, biathlon participants get a day of rest between the two programs.

For his gold medal win at the event in the 95kg division, Tseng totaled 188 lifts in his 10-minute snatch program and 129 lifts in his 10-minute jerk program.

Tseng said that the sport requires a lot of technique and stamina, as well as strength.