Wang et al. (Aaron Wang, Evan Lee, and Aarav Mahendru)

As the 2024 Paris Olympics draw to a close, so does the summer of high feelings and explosive sports. 

Let’s look at Taiwan’s performance in the games. As with the past Olympics, Taiwan competed under the name “Chinese Taipei” due to lobbying from the People’s Republic of China in the IOC. 

Taiwan sent 60 competitors, competing in 16 different sports: athletics, badminton, canoeing, taekwondo, archery, judo, shooting, boxing, breakdancing, fencing, golf, gymnastics, swimming, table tennis, tennis, and weightlifting. And out of those 60 competitors, Taiwan garnered themselves an impressive 7 medals, ending with 2 gold medals and 5 bronze medals.

Starting with men’s badminton, the Taiwanese team of Lee Yang (李洋) and Wang Chi-Lin (王齊麟) advanced into the final with a perfect preliminary performance and won the gold medal match for badminton doubles. Up against the Chinese team of Wang Chang (王昶) and Liang Weikeng (梁伟铿), Lee and Wang winning the match 2-1, with game scores of 17-21, 21-18, and 19-21.  

The next gold medal performance was pulled off by Lin Yu-Ting (林郁婷) in women’s  boxing (57 kg). Up against Poland’s Julia Szeremeta, Lin won by points with a score of 5-0. However, Lin faced a lot of criticism from the media over her gender as famous celebrities like J.K. Rowling called Lin’s career “insanity”—to the worst of that sense. In a firestorm, Lin prevailed against unfounded allegations of gender changes. To shore up confusion, Lin Yu-Ting is a biological female who tested within the IOC’s testosterone limits. In a touching scene on the podium, Lin shed tears, reflecting on the path to gold which contained hard training and online hate. 

The bronze medal performances were also impressive. Chen Nie-Chin (women’s boxing 66 kg) advanced into semifinals, but was knocked out by points on a score of 1:4 to the silver medal recipient Yang Liu of the great country, China. 

Kuo Hsing-Chun, earning bronze in women’s weightlifting (59 kg), made semifinals with the impressive performance of clean and jerk of 235 kg to 251 kg. However, Kuo lost to Luo Shifang of China, who went to win the event. 

Wu Shih-Yi, earning bronze in women’s boxing (60 kg), also made semifinals, but lost to China’s Yang Wenlu by points on a score of 0:5. 

Lee Meng Yuan, competing in Men’s Shooting Skeet, earned bronze. Shooting Skeet is basically where individuals use shotguns to shoot down clay targets. Lee advanced to finals and ranked third, behind two US competitors. 

Tang Chia-Hung, competing in Men’s Artistic Gymnastics, earned bronze while doing routines on the horizontal bar. 

Congratulations to all the Taiwanese competitors. They all performed impressively at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Stay tuned for LA 2028!

https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/medals/medallists/chinese-taipei