OLYMPICS/Aug. 6 recap: Taiwanese boxer wins bronze, table tennis team advances

Taipei, Aug. 7 (CNA) Taiwanese boxer Chen Nien-chin (陳念琴) won a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Paris on Tuesday (Paris time), while the women's table tennis team advanced to the quarterfinals of their team event.

Chen secured a bronze medal after losing to China's Yang Liu (楊柳) 4-1 in the women's 66-kilogram weight class.

In Olympic boxing, there is no bronze-medal match, meaning that both losing semi-finalists automatically win bronze medals.

The 27-year-old Chen was competing in her third Olympic appearance, following her participation in Rio and Tokyo. She is also an Asian Games bronze medalist.

It was the second bronze medal Taiwanese boxers have won in Paris. On Aug. 2, Wu Shih-yi (吳詩儀) lost to top-seeded Yang Wenlu (楊文璐) of China 5-0 in her semifinal bout in the women's 60-kg division.

Another Taiwanese boxer, Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷), has already clinched a bronze medal by reaching the semifinals of her 57-kg weight class, but she will be vying for a place in the finals later Wednesday against Esra Yildiz Kahraman of Turkiye.

Also on Tuesday, in the women's table tennis team event, Chien Tung-chuan (簡彤娟), Chen Szu-yu (陳思羽), and Cheng Yi-ching (鄭怡靜) gave Taiwan a 3-0 win over Australia in their opening round match and will face top-seeded China on Wednesday.

The men's table tennis team, however, was unable to get past Japan in the quarterfinals of the men's team event, losing 3-1 in the best-of-five battle.

In the opening doubles match, which Taiwan needed to win if it was to have a chance, veteran Chuang Chih-yuan (莊智淵) and Kao Cheng-jui (高承睿) were defeated by Japan's Shunsuke Togami and Hiroto Shinozuka 11-7, 11-5, and 11-9.

Lin Yun-ju (林昀儒) then evened the score in a singles match against Tomokazu Harimoto 11-9, 9-11, 11-7, 3-11, 11-6, rallying with five consecutive points in the final game to win the tense encounter.

But Japan then clinched the match when Kao lost to Togami and Chuang lost to Harimoto in straight games in their respective singles matches.

In athletics, sprinter Yang Chun-han (楊俊瀚) failed to reach the semifinals in the men's 200 meters on Tuesday after he finished third with a time of 20.73 seconds in the repechage round, where 32 runners competed in four heats.

Yang was the last Taiwanese track & field athlete still competing at the Paris Olympics.