Taipei Times
Date:  Nov 10, 2015
By: Grant Dexter  /  Staff reporter

The Netherlands seized an early lead and kept it all the way to a 7-4 victory in Taiwan’s

opening match of the WSBC Premier 12 at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium last night.

The visitors led 4-1 after two frames after getting two runs on two sacrifice flies to the outfield, before third baseman Yurendell De Caster blasted a two-run homer, while Taiwan’s Yang Dai-kang provided the reply with a home run in the bottom of the first.

Taiwan scored through catcher Lin Hung-yu’s RBI double and had a prime opportunity to go ahead in the bottom of the fourth, putting two runners on base off hits by shortstop Kuo Yen-wen and second baseman Lin Chih-sheng with no outs.

However, the Netherlands sent in Tom Stuifbergen replaced starting pitcher Diegomar Markwell and he struck out the next two batters — Lin Yi-chuan and Kao Kuo-hui — before getting first baseman Chen Chun-hsiu to hit into a groundout down the first-base line to eliminate the opportunity.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/11/08
By: Lee Yu-Cheng and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Nov. 8 (CNA) Baseball legend Sadaharu Oh (王貞治) expressed the hope on Sunday that Taiwan and Japan could face off in the final of the first Premier 12 baseball championship being held in Taiwan and Japan.

Baseball’s all-time professional home run king, who is in Taiwan to accept a commendation from the Taiwan Baseball Hall of Fame Association, said jokingly that “Japan will be No. 1 while Taiwan can set second place as the goal.”

The 75-year-old Oh said at a news conference that the focus of his present life is to promote baseball, adding that “I live for that.”

He said he believed all 12 of the participating teams could perform well, and he was glad to have such a tournament that will raise the standard of baseball and promote the sport.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/11/08
By: Lee Chin-wei and Kay Liu

Taipei, Nov. 8 (CNA) Yani Tseng and Teresa Lu were the best Taiwanese performers at the LPGA Tour’s stop in Japan — the TOTO Japan Classic — finishing tied for 16th with 10-under-par 206s in the three-round tournament that concluded Sunday.

The two finished six shots behind the winner, Sun-Ju Ahn of South Korea, who won a playoff against countrywoman Ji-Hee Lee and American Angela Stanford along with the US$225,000 top prize.

In an event where low scores were the norm and only five of the 77 players in the field finished the tournament above par, Tseng and Lu were unable to shoot the low numbers they needed to contend at the top of the leaderboard in Sunday’s final round.

Tseng, who started the day in eighth place, four shots out of the lead at 9-under, bogeyed the par-4 third but then ran off four birdies over the next five holes to move within two shots of the lead.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/11/08
By: Shen Ju-feng and Lee Mei-yu

Taipei, Nov. 8 (CNA) Kenyan runner Richard Mutisya won the men’s division of the inaugural Matsu Marathon on Sunday in the outlying Matsu Islands just a day after capturing another marathon in Taiwan proper.

Mutisya, who finished the Matsu marathon in a relatively slow 3 hours 20 minutes and 43 seconds admitted to fatigue after winning the Taroko Gorge Marathon on Saturday in a time of 2 hours 28 minutes.

“It was very tiring but I will come back to challenge again if there is one next year,” Mutisya said.

More than 800 local and foreign runners navigated through famous tourist sites on the Matsu Islands’ largest island of Nangan, such as the statue of the goddess of Matsu, the Tunnel 88, and the Iron Castle.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/11/07
By: Lee Yu-cheng and Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Nov. 7 (CNA) Taiwan lost to South Korea 78-69 in the final of the FIBA Asia U16 Championship in Jakarta, Indonesia on Saturday, but it was still the country’s best-ever showing in the tournament held every two years.

As one of the top three finishers in the 16-team tournament, Taiwan automatically qualified for the 2016 FIBA U17 World Championship in Spain, along with South Korea and third-place China.

In Saturday’s final, Taiwan had a 31-30 lead at halftime, but the Koreans went on a 9-0 run to start the third quarter and never led by fewer than six points after that.

Taiwan defeated Japan 60-57 in the semifinals on Friday to reach the final, ensuring that it would eclipse its previous best finish at the event, a fourth-place finish in 2013 when China won the championship.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/11/01
By: Lee Yu-cheng and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Nov. 1 (CNA) New Zealand athletes won both the men’s and women’s pro titles

Sunday in the 2015 Ironman 70.3 Taiwan triathlon competition in Hengchun, in Taiwan’s southernmost county of Pingtung.

The Ironman 70.3 is a triathlon challenge consisting of three events combined into one big endurance challenge: a 1.9-km swim, a 90-km bike ride and a 21.1-km run. The total of 113 km is 70.3 miles.

Guy Crawford and Gina Crawford, who are not related, took the titles with finishing times of 3 hours, 33 minutes and 42 seconds, and 4:05:36, respectively.

In the men’s pro event, Germany’s Christian Kramer came in second place with a time of 3:35:38, and Sweden’s Frederik Croneborg placed third with 3:38:40.

In the women’s pro event, Australia’s Kate Bevilaqua finished second with 4:07:07, and Australia’s Dimity-Lee Duke came in third with 4:14:12.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/11/01
By: Lee Chin-wei and Christie Chen

Taipei, Nov. 1 (CNA) Taiwanese golfer Phoebe Yao (姚宣榆) finished tied for 22nd place at

the Hisako Higuchi Ponta Ladies in Japan Sunday with a three-round score of 218.

Yao fired three birdies and four bogeys in her final round of 73, finishing with a total of 2-over 218 in the tournament, an annual event on the LPGA of Japan Tour.

Another Taiwanese golfer, Wei Yun-jye (魏筠潔), shot seven bogeys to end a birdie-less round with a score of 79. She finished in 56th place with a 10-over 226.

Japan’s Ayaka Watanabe won the tournament with a three-round score of 11-under 205.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/10/30
By: Wang Shu-fen and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Oct. 30 (CNA) French cyclist Damien Frederic Monier has emerged as the winner of the 2015 Taiwan KOM (King of the Mountains) Challenge and the race’s NT$1 million (US$30,733) first prize, the Tourism Bureau said Friday.

Monier finished the race in 3:34:19.

Among Taiwanese cyclists, Feng Chun-kai (馮俊凱) topped the standings in 3:39:43. His overall ranking was seventh.

Now in its fourth year, the grueling one-day 105-kilometer race took cyclists through the mountains of central Taiwan.

Starting from the Qixingtan scenic area along the coast of Hualien County, it then climbed 87 kilometers via the breathtaking Taroko Gorge to a 3,275-meter peak in Wuling near Hehuan Mountain, the highest point in Taiwan accessible by public roads.     [FULL  STORY]