Taiwan has joined the global celebration of Olympic achievements, with the Taiwanese community in Lagos recently rolling out the red carpet to honor their team’s performance at the Paris Olympics.
Taiwan’s team earned two gold and five bronze medals, securing 35th place out of 206 participating nations.
In a statement, Andy Yih-Ping Liu, Representative and Chief of Taiwan Mission in Nigeria, expressed the community’s pride. He highlighted that Boxer Lin Yu-ting and “Taiwan’s Fastest Man” Yang Chun-han served as flag bearers during the closing ceremonies, symbolizing Taiwan’s seven-medal achievement.
Liu praised the athletes for embodying the enduring Taiwanese spirit and expressed optimism for the upcoming Los Angeles Olympics, hoping for continued success and national pride.
The two gold medals matched Taiwan’s record for the most golds at a single Olympics, with the overall medal count being the second highest for the nation, following the 12 medals won in Tokyo. The golds were secured by Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin in men’s badminton, and Lin in women’s boxing (57kg). Despite an injury preventing Kuo Hsing-chun from repeating her Tokyo gold, she won bronze in the women’s 59kg weightlifting, making her the first Taiwanese to medal in three consecutive Olympics.
Other bronze medals went to Chen Nien-chin in women’s boxing (66kg), Tang Chia-hung in men’s gymnastics horizontal bar, Wu Shih-yi in women’s boxing (60kg), and Lee Meng-yuan in men’s skeet shooting.
At the closing ceremony, Lin was the female flag bearer, and Yang represented the male side. The ceremony also featured Taiwanese athletes Cheng Yi-ching, Zheng Jiaqi, Sun Chen, Su Chih-peng, Peng Ming-yang, Tseng Hsiao-sheng, and Tsai I-ta.
The highlight of the ceremony was a dramatic moment when actor Tom Cruise rappelled into the Stade de France, took the Olympic flag from Simone Biles and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and then paraded out of the stadium on a motorcycle before skydiving over Los Angeles to deliver the flag to the 2028 Olympic host city.
