Making History for Taiwan

Lai, who has quick, fierce, accurate hands and a fearsome expression, can deliver six punches in one second. However, outside the ring this slender young man is soft-spoken and introverted.

Taking on the international boxing world as a representative of Taiwan, Lai has won respect in the leading boxing countries around the globe. However, all of this success has been paid for with numerous failures—a process of being continually knocked down and getting up again.

When you fall, get back up

Lai recalls an early lesson from when he entered his first international competition, the Youth World Boxing Championships in Bulgaria, back when he was in high school, but lost in the first bout. “That’s when I realized that the world of boxing is so vast, and that boxing is not easy.”

He relates: “When I competed in the Asian Amateur Boxing Championships in 2015, I didn’t have enough inter­national experience, and I was intimidated when I was in the ring. All I could do was keep running and dodging, and in three rounds I didn’t even throw eight punches.”

In 2016, full of self-confidence and with high expectations, he embarked on the competition at the Rio Olympics, but again was defeated in the first round. He returned to Taiwan devastated.

Lai says that the major reason he has persisted up to the present day is “family.” “Family is very important to me, and I have always hoped that through boxing I could improve my family’s financial situation.”

With astonishing endurance and tenacity, Lai won a silver medal at the 2023 Asian Games. (courtesy of Li Tianzhu)

Lai Chu-en, who will compete in the light welterweight (63.5 kg) division at the Paris Olympics, counts fierce punches and quick-moving defense among his strengths. (courtesy of Li Tianzhu)

Success through perseverance

“If we define success not in terms of winning medals, but as persevering through failure, then he has been a success.” When coach Sean Lo talks about Lai, at whose side he has been through the low moments, he speaks in a poignant tone. He says he doesn’t have enough fingers on both hands to count up all the fights Lai has lost over the past seven years. Often after training hard for a long time, Lai has won the first round of a bout only to lose in the second. Still, after returning to Taiwan, he goes right back to work the next day.

Athletes inspire other athletes. Lai saw how “Judo God” Yang Yung-wei, who like Lai is a member of the Paiwan indigenous people and attended the same university, not only worked hard but also had the ability to set goals for himself. When Lai saw Yang take home a silver medal from the ­Tokyo Olympics, he was inspired to emulate him.

Lai, who always wears his hair in a high ponytail, reveals that he subsequently revised his training goals. When in 2021 he competed at the World Boxing Championships in Serbia, although he did not win a medal, he defeated a Mongolian opponent and lost to a powerful Uzbeki competitor by only three to two. At that point Lai knew he had taken a huge step forward in terms of both his skills and his mindset.

He is no longer intimidated and even looks forward to fights now. He hopes to take on even better boxers and to find out where his limits are, and how he can improve further. He knows that he can still take it up a level.

Taiwanese boxing coach Sean Lo has been by Lai Chu-en’s side throughout his sports journey. They have faced and overcome life’s difficulties together, redefining the meaning of success in life.

Lai exhibits a determination to never give up—the true spirit of sportsmanship.

Aiming for an Olympic medal

At the 2022 Asian Amateur Boxing Championships (ASBC), Lai won a bronze in the men’s 63.5-kg weight class. This was Taiwan’s first ASBC men’s medal in 11 years. Lai even boldly told his coach Sean Lo, who qualified for the 2000 Sydney Games: “Coach, I want to take you to the Olympics.”

At the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China (held in 2023), Lai’s astonishing endurance and tenacity became the keys to his victory in the third round, when he was tired and hurting. He defeated opponents from boxing powerhouses Iran and Kyrgyzstan and won a silver medal, ending a 53-year drought for Taiwan for men’s boxing medals at the Asian Games. He thus wrote a glorious chapter in the history of Taiwan boxing, and this gave him high hopes that he would be able to stand on the medals platform at the Paris Olympics.

In the Olympic boxing ring, Lai will rely on his strengths of rapid movement and quick punches. As a left-handed fighter, his attacks will focus on the opponent’s liver, hoping to knock him down so hard that he can’t get up. Today, Lai’s movements are more refined and meticulous than in the past and his level of concentration is where it needs to be.

Sean Lo says that boxing is the only sport in the world where the competitor must keep moving forward even after starting to bleed; in all other sports, time out is called whenever blood is visible. Learning from his defeats, Lai is now a mature fighter who should be able to bring all his talents into play in the Olympic ring. “We can fight a competition in which we will have no regrets and prove to the world that boxing has a future in Taiwan.”

“Boxing is my life,” says Lai Chu-en. As he continues to persevere in pursuit of his goals, he is using boxing to write his life story.