FEATURE/Taiwan at Paris Olympics: Farewells, fresh faces and predictions

By Chao Yen-hsiang, CNA staff writer

The Games of the 33rd Olympiad officially begin in Paris on July 26, and Taiwan will be represented by a team of 60 athletes competing as usual under the name "Chinese Taipei."

CNA asked veteran commentator Chen Kai (陳楷), who has covered five Olympic Games, to discuss the major storylines involving Taiwanese athletes going into the Summer Games and predict how many medals Taiwan will win, especially after a record performance in Tokyo three years ago.

His overall assessment? Do not expect Taiwanese athletes to fare as well as they did in Tokyo, when they won a total of 12 medals in 10 sports, as many veteran athletes compete in their last Olympic Games.

● Feature/Decoding history: Taiwan at the Olympics, by the numbers

Farewells

Paris will be the last chance for fans to see two badminton stars, former world No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying (戴資穎) and Tokyo men's doubles gold medalist Lee Yang (李洋), represent Taiwan in the Olympics as both have announced they will retire after the 2024 season.

Tennis veteran Latisha Chan (詹詠然) has also said this will be her final Olympic appearance, and table tennis veteran Chuang Chih-yuan (莊智淵), who has participated in every Olympics since Athens 2004, may also be competing in his last games.

The 43-year-old table tennis player has yet to discuss his future, but as Chen said, "if Chuang Chih-yuan competed [in Los Angeles in 2028], it would be big news."

Also potentially concluding their Olympic careers are badminton player Chou Tien-chen (周天成), judoka Lien Chen-ling (連珍羚), and archer Lei Chien-ying (雷千瑩), due to their ages and sports.

According to Chen, Taiwan's oldest Olympic athlete might be marksman Tsai Pai-sheng (蔡白生), who represented Taiwan in Seoul in 1988 at the age of 53.

Fresh faces

Of the 60 Taiwanese athletes set to compete in Paris, 21 will make their Olympic debut, the fewest since the Chinese Taipei era began in 1984. It will be the first time since Beijing 2008 that more than half of the team has Olympic experience.

The youngest athletes on the team, all newcomers, are table tennis player Kao Cheng-jui (高承睿), shooter Li Tsai-chi (李彩綺), and swimmer Angie Coe (Han An-chi, 韓安齊), all aged 19.

Less competitive?

Chen also cautioned that the size of the team headed to Paris is down from 68 in Tokyo, suggesting a decline in overall competitiveness.

Over the past years, the team's size had risen from 44 in London in 2012, to 55 in Rio, and 68 in Tokyo.

"The criteria for the Olympic Games are increasingly strict with each edition. The number of athletes on our national team indicates that we've been doing a great job since London," Chen said, noting that this was the first decline in team size since the London Games.

Gains & losses

There are four disciplines in which Taiwanese competed three years ago but will not in Paris -- karate, road cycling, equestrian, and rowing. Taiwan won a bronze medal in karate in Tokyo, but the sport will not be part of the Paris Games.

Chen said the absence of Taiwanese athletes in equestrian events is not noteworthy given its niche status in Taiwan, but not being represented in the cycling and rowing events is more telling.

Taiwan competed in rowing for the first time in Athens in 2004 and had entered rowers in every Olympics since then, and it had been represented in road cycling events at every Olympics since returning to the games under the name "Chinese Taipei" in 1984.

These absences reflect the shortcomings of the sports' respective associations, and "[these associations] should take responsibility for this," Chen said, noting that each association is supposed to promote its own sports and help more athletes qualify for the Olympics.

In contrast, he praised the Chinese Taipei Fencing Association for its efforts in getting Chen Yi-tung (陳弈通) qualified in the men's foil individual event.

Chen Yi-tung's appearance marks Taiwan's return to Olympic fencing for the first time since London 2012 and ends a 36-year drought of Taiwanese men's participation in the discipline.

The Paris Games will also feature a street dance event, where breakdancer Sun Chen (孫振), known as B-Boy Quake, is ready to make his mark.

Revenge & redemption

Judoka Lien Chen-ling and boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will seek to avenge their first-round eliminations in Tokyo.

Lien, who finished fifth in Rio, and Lin, ranked first in the world in the women's featherweight division before Tokyo, were both eliminated in the round of 16. They nearly retired but rebounded to top their events at the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023.

In a recent interview with CNA, Lin admitted the Tokyo experience still haunts her, but she is hoping to once and for all put that behind her in Paris.

Who could contend; predictions

Chen Kai said Taiwan is unlikely to match its success in Tokyo, predicting a haul of maybe half the 12 medals it won in 2021.

"It will be pretty good if we can win one gold, one silver, and three to four bronze medals," he said. "Unlike the Tokyo Olympics, which was held in Asia, we don't have the home court advantage this time, and our athletes have to adjust to the jet lag."

Brian Cazeneuve, who predicts medal winners ahead of every Olympics for Sports Illustrated, was even less optimistic, giving Taiwan a total of three medals -- a gold in boxing and bronzes in archery and taekwondo.

Chen predicted that the team's top performances will come from judoka Yang Yung-wei (楊勇緯), who won silver in Tokyo, and artistic gymnast Tang Chia-hung (唐嘉鴻).

Yang, who finished second at the World Judo Championships in May and is the team's only athlete entering Paris as a top seed, will compete in his event on July 27 Paris time.

Tang, who finished seventh in the all-around event in Tokyo but missed the horizontal bar final, made a strong comeback after an Achilles tendon injury, topping three of the four horizontal bar qualifiers leading up to the Paris Games. He will compete on Aug. 5.

Female weightlifter Kuo Hsing-chun (郭婞淳) has a chance to make history as the first Taiwanese athlete with three Olympic medals.

Having won gold in Tokyo and bronze in Rio, she is tied with four athletes for the most Olympic medals with two.

Winning a third medal will be a challenge, however, because she has been battling injuries and has struggled to regain the form that helped her set a world record of 247 kg for the combined lift in her weight class in April 2021.

Former world No. 1 Tai is also hoping to make one last push for gold in the badminton women's singles after winning silver in Tokyo, but she too has been plagued by injuries in recent months after a promising start to the year and faces a tough draw.

"I believe only gold matters to [Tai], now that she has won a silver, but the situation is completely different from three years ago and it's going to be extremely hard for her to achieve it," Chen Kai said.

Others to look out for who should be competitive in their events are women's boxers Lin and Chen Nien-chin (陳念琴, welterweight), Taiwan's only taekwondo competitor and Tokyo bronze medalist Lo Chia-ling (羅嘉翎, also trying to come back from injury), and Taiwan's archers in the team competitions.

A few wild cards could be Taiwan's table tennis team and long jumper Lin Yu-tang (林昱堂), who qualified for the Olympics with a career-best jump of 8.40 meters at the Asian Athletics Championships in July 2023 but has failed to come close to that mark since then.

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