Good News from the National Intercollegiate Athletic Games: Ken Taniguchi, Ji-Chien Yang & Wei-Che Hsu Won Consecutive Gold Medals

2023/05/07

The opening ceremony of the National Intercollegiate Athletic Games 2023 was held at Chung Yuan Christian University on May 6th. Dr. Huan-Chao Keh, TKU President, led the faculty and students into the venue. This year, there are 11 teams participating. As of press time, the TKU athletes have won 4 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze medals, as well as the first place in the general men's team of karate and the second place in the general men's team of soft tennis. In the judo event, Ken Taniguchi, a freshman from Japanese department won the gold medal in the general men's first weight class. In the karate event, Ji-Chien Yang, a senior from chemical engineering department won the gold medal in the general men's individual kata and the gold medal in the general men's 5th weight class, while Wei-Che Hsu, a 2nd-year student from mechanical engineering department won the gold medal in the general men's 4th weight class. In the soft tennis games, Hao-Yun Deng, a senior from the transportation management department won the silver medal in the general men's singles, and Yamasaki Ichika,a sophomore from the tourism management department, and Po-Hsuan Wu, a senior from the French department won the bronze medal in the general women's doubles. The general men's team also won the silver medal.

Ken Taniguchi shared that he was very happy to win the gold medal. He started practicing judo since his first grade in elementary school. Although he suffered setbacks due to injuries in high school and missed the opportunity to join the national team, he never gave up and continued to improve. After being selected for the representative team this semester, he received weekly training from Professor Ku-Chen Huang from the Office of Physical Education, and conducted basic training in the gymnasium. If there is no training scheduled, he would go running, and his perseverance in training has led to today's good results.

Captain of soft tennis team Hao-Yun Deng stated that this training camp was similar to previous years, with weather conditions affecting their ability to practice many times. Fortunately, with the help of alumni, they were able to train in Zhongli on weekends. In the singles championship match, he faced Geng-Yu Chao, a talented freshman from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Due to not being mentally prepared, he lost many points at the beginning, although he stabilized his footing later on. Unfortunately, he failed to handle the key points in the deciding set and missed the chance to win the gold medal. In the team competition, they broke their previous record, beating National Taiwan University in the semi-final, but failed to win the championship. "We never gave up during the process and persisted in showing our fighting spirit. Many referees praised the enthusiasm of the Tamkang team as the best among all teams, and I hope that younger students can continue to maintain it."

Ms. Hsiao-Wen Chao, the coach of the soft tennis team and associate professor of the Office of Physical Education, said that many players who have received formal training participated in the tournament this year, making the competition very intense, with every game being fiercely contested. "We persisted and got the results until the seventh point in both the singles and team championship matches. Although we lost by a slight margin in the end, I believe that our team members have learned and grown a lot from this experience. In the future, they will surely take training more seriously to improve their skills. Our team got third place in the team event last year and second place this year. We hope that the Tamkang University Soft Tennis team can return to the championship next year with the same lineup and achieve even better results."

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