Youth Olympic Taekwondo" Zheng Boyu reversed the world youth gold medal winner, Taiwan team won the second gold medal this year

At the 4th Dhaka Youth Olympic Games in 2026, the Taiwan delegation won its second gold medal! In the men's 55kg Taekwondo final, Zheng Boyu reversed the World Youth gold medal, Asadbek Samandarov from Uzbekistan, with a 2-1 round count to win the gold medal.

Zheng Boxu is the third Youth Olympics taekwondo gold medalist in team history after Huang Huaixuan and Huang Yuren in the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympics. He is also the second gold medalist in the delegation after table tennis Chen Yixin in this Youth Olympic Games. At the same time, Zheng Boxu also joins Huang Huaixuan, Huang Yuren, Jiang Nianxin and Chen Yixin, becoming the fifth Youth Olympic gold medalist in the history of the delegation.

As of this Youth Olympic Games, Taiwan has a total of 7 taekwondo medals in team history, preceded by Huang Huaixuan, Huang Yuren, Wang Chenyu (2014 silver medal), Chen Ziting (2014 bronze medal), Li Meng'en (2018 silver medal), and this year's Lai Yizhen (bronze medal).

Li Meng'en, who won the silver medal at the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympics, is a senior at Zheng Bo Yuping Town High School. Taiwan team coach Zhang Qiongfang is also the coach of the school. She said with a smile: "Meng En's Youth Olympic poster is still hanging in the school. Before departure, I told him Boyu joked that it’s time to squeeze out the senior position!” Zheng Boyu also said: “I feel very happy. When I go back, I will see the poster hanging there and make it my own, and I will feel that I have made a great contribution and feel honored!”

Zheng Boyu swept Liberia's Francis Vulue 17:2, 16:1 in the first match. He won both rounds with PTG (Point Gap, winning by point gap, ending early with a 15-point lead). After advancing to the top four, Zheng Boyu defeated Bolivia's Alejandro Tordoya 16:0, 23:7 to advance to the gold medal match. He also won with PTG.

In the gold medal match, facing the 2026 Tashkent World Youth Championship gold medalist Samandarov, Zheng Boyu was hit by the opponent's midfielder in the countdown of the first round and lost 0:2. In the second round, the situation was still stalemate, Zheng Boyu Three obvious counter-attack spin kicks were not scored, and the final battle was 0:0, but they won with a point advantage. In the third round, they found a breakthrough with 26 seconds left. After a counter-attack spin kick hit, the offensive succeeded one after another, and finally won 6:4.

Zhang Qiongfang laughed after the game and said that her heart was about to stop. She was so nervous and excited that she didn't know what to say. The game was really thrilling.

"Actually, we locked in on him (Samandarov) after the entry list came out." Zhang Qiongfang admitted that he had good luck in signing and only met the World Youth gold medalist at the end, giving him a little more time to prepare. He pointed out that Zheng Boyu handled the front foot movements better than before and was more focused than before. "He deserves the gold medal today!"