Iran’s Hadi Saei won the men’s 80kg class taekwondo gold yeterday, defeating Italy’s Mauro Sarmiento.
Saei, who won the gold in a lower weight class in the Athens Olympics four years ago, went ahead in the first round, but Sarmiento hit him squarely with a head kick to make the score 4-2.
Saei landed a kick in the second round to move within a point, then another to Sarmiento’s side to tie the score at 4-4 going into the final round.
Saei came out quickly in the third, scoring another point for the lead. He then added a sixth point to seal the victory.
Steven Lopez of the US scored on Azerbaijan’s Rashad Ahmadov in the final seconds to win bronze. The second bronze went to China’s Zhu Guo, who defeated Britain’s Aaron Cook 4-1.
In the women’s 67kg competition South Korea’s double world champion Hwang Kyung-seon beat Canada’s Karine Sergerie 2-1 to claim the gold medal.
Sergerie, the world champion in the 59-63kg class, led 1-0 after the first period but the South Korean hit back to tie the score 1-1 in the second.
Hwang’s back kick caught the Canadian’s abdomen in the third round to bring South Korea their third gold medal in taekwondo on the third day of the four-day competition.
The bronze medals went to world silver medalist Gwladys Patience Epangue of France, who defeated Australia’s Tina Morgan 4-1, and Croatia’s Sandra Saric who outscored Puerto Rico’s Asuncion Ocasio Rodriguez 5-1.
Earlier in the day Sheikha Maitha bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, a member of the United Arab Emirates royal family made her Olympic debut in the event.
She lost 5-1 to eventual champion Hwang.
Sheikha Maitha was given a spot in the repecharge but was overpowered 4-0 by bronze medalist Saric.
Her father, UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, is a karate blackbelt and she followed him into the Japanese-born combat sport.
Four years later, she also started practicing taekwondo and won a silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. She was named the Arab athlete of the year last year.
“I love sports. I love athletes. I love what sportsmanship represents, the value of sports,” she said. “Just win or lose. It’s very fair. There’s no class, you know. Everyone is equal. You’re on your merit.”
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team
RSS