The 2023 National Intercollege Athletic Games were held at Chung Yuan Christian University from April 28 to May 10. For this year’s games, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) sent out a total of 114 athletes to represent the school. NPUST president Chin-Lung Chang joined the students at the opening ceremony of the games, and lent them some added encouragement for their competitions. With 12 teams in total, the NPUST athletes participated in such events as track & field, swimming, badminton, billiards, tennis, judo, taekwondo, wrestling, woodball, cycling, boxing, and gymnastics. The overall performance was quite outstanding, and the NPUST teams were able to win honor for their school and bring home 7 golds, 5 silvers, 5 bronzes and 24 rankings between fourth to the eighth. In the overall medal count, NPUST ranked No. 12 among all the 143 participating colleges; and when excluding the colleges specifically dedicated to sports training, it ranked 5th.
Before the opening ceremony even took place, NPUST already had 4 golds and 3 bronzes in the bag, with the judo wrestling team first to see victory. Last year’s gold medalist in sixth-level judo, Yubo Kuo of the Department of Biomechanical Engineering, contended in fifth-level this year, and once again won the championship in the general men’s group and took home the gold. Yu-Sheng Peng from the Department of Agriculture also won a gold medal for the second consecutive year, taking his victory in third-level freestyle wrestling in the general men’s group. Two more golds were won for the school in table tennis by Jia-Hong Ho of the Department of Recreational Sport & Health Promotion in the general men’s singles group and De-yue Lu from the Department of Biotechnology and Yi-Hsien Chen from the Department of Recreational Sport & Health Promotion in general men’s doubles. Meanwhile the general men’s group team, women’s group and general men’s doubles took home bronzes.
The track and field team won 2 gold medals, 3 silver medals, 1 fourth place, 3 sixth places and 1 seventh place. This year, Yu-an Chen from the Agricultural Department, who won the bronze medal in the general men’s triple jump last year, successfully secured the gold. Bai-chang Huang, a freshman in the Department of Biomechanical Engineering, won the gold in his first test in the general men’s pole vault event. Yu-ting Huang from the Department of Recreational Sport & Health Promotion competed in general woman’s hammer throw and Pin-juan chang of the same department in both the general woman’s 800 meter and 1500 meter races, winning 3 more silver medals for the school.
The taekwondo contenders won 1 silver, 1 bronze, 2 fifth places and 1 seventh place. In the general woman’s Poomsae group, the team ranked fifth in the preliminaries; however, in the semi-final PK match, they beat the third group, and in the end took home the bronze. Yen-chu Lin of the Department of Aquaculture also won silver in the general women’s 46kg sparring group.
The badminton team were able to secure a gold, silver and fifth place ranking. In the general men’s doubles, new partners Fu-yang Chiang of Department of Recreational Sport & Health Promotion and Pin-chia Huang of the Department of Veterinary Medicine stayed the full course and impressed with a gold medal win. Meanwhile, in woman’s open singles, Universiade athlete Shuo-yun Sung represented NPUST for the first time and was able to take home a silver.
In tennis, Chen Chang from the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering and Ting-yun Huang from the Department of Forestry did not let bad weather throw off their game and were able to secure a bronze despite the windy and rainy conditions.
All-in-all, the athletes from NPUST took on their challengers and proved their merits, winning brilliant results for the school. Congratulations to the NPUST team! The school shares your joy and is honored by your successes!
