After picking up the 2019 IHF Men’s Trophy (U19) – Intercontinental Phase title in Pristina, Kosovo, Chinese Taipei’s captain Yen Po Hsieh and coach Chun Yu Li spoke to IHF.info about their achievement which saw them beat Paraguay (38:22), Nigeria (36:18) and Kosovo (35:26) before their gold medal win against Nigeria in a much closer match, 27:26.

Yen Po Hsieh: We were confident at first, but we weren’t feeling good during the match and, honestly, I was a bit worried in the middle of the match, when it was +3 to Nigeria, but, of course, I was happy that we won in the end.

We just knew we had to do better, but I did encourage my teammates and it was a good thing that we all did better, but I think it was a bit of luck which changed the game for us.

We were thinking that we could do better, the first game was our best performance and the next three games we didn’t do as well, so we have a lot to improve on, but we made history as this is the first time that we have stood on this kind of stage.

Chun Yu Li: I am happy, but we didn’t do well in the match. I believed that we would win but it was a tough match. We made some strategies but didn’t execute them.

Chun Yu Li: This competition is only a part of our destiny for this team. The final goal is to get to the IHF Men’s World Youth Championship.

Yen Po Hsieh: I hope more people back home can start playing handball and the kids who are already playing handball I hope we can inspire them to do even better and to work harder.

Yen Po Hsieh: We didn’t go to many places during this championship, but the people here are very warm here and nice going - Kosovo will always have a special memory for us.

The ladies who came to watch us were people from back home, here in Kosovo, living and working – they heard we were here so came to cheer for us.

I didn’t know they were coming at first, and I only saw them during the match. It was very encouraging for us to have them here and I am sorry we didn’t show our best performance, but we are happy to win.