Taiwanese sharpshooter traps gold at Asian Shotgun Championship

Taipei, Jan. 21 (CNA) Taiwanese sharpshooter Liu Wan-yu (劉宛渝) won gold in the women's trap event at the 2026 Asian Shotgun Championship on Tuesday.

She later claimed a silver medal with Olympian Lin I-chun (林怡君) and 22-year-old Yeh Mei-hsuan (葉美萱) in the Trap Women Team event.

More than 200 athletes from 17 countries are competing in the 2026 Asian Shotgun Championship in Doha, with Taiwan fielding 13 shooters across professional and junior divisions.

In the team event, Liu, Lin and Yeh scored a total of 316 points to earn silver behind gold-medal winning Kazakhstan, which had a score of 325.

Later in the individual trap competition, Liu, who ranked seventh in the preliminary round, advanced to the final and secured gold after edging Eleonora Ibragimova of Kazakhstan.

Speaking to CNA, Liu said her preliminary-round performance was inconsistent, but she adjusted her stance during the competition, regained her rhythm and ultimately reached the final.

Liu said the competitors at the event were still adapting to the new final-round format this year, but that she was able to settle herself down after talking with her coach to take the top spot.

She joked that her victory was just keeping a streak of Taiwanese athletes winning events early in the year alive.

"At the beginning of this year, Lin Yun-ju (林昀儒) in table tennis and Lin Chun-yi (林俊易) in badminton won titles, so I felt us shooters could not lose and break the streak," she said.

Liu is hoping to maintain her form throughout the rest of the year and peak at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games, which will take place from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4 this year.

The team's veteran shooter, Lin I-chun, praised her teammates' performance in the team event, while noting that she was still recovering from a leg injury and vowed to perform better in future competitions.

In the men's skeet event, Taiwanese shooter Yang Kun-pi (楊昆弼) entered the final ranked third but finished fourth, narrowly missing out on a medal.

(By Li Chien-chung and Lee Chieh-yu) enditem/ls