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.”
Inter’s defense of their Italian Serie A title was hit with a setback on Sunday as they lost 1-0 at home to AS Roma, while Scott McTominay netted a brace as SSC Napoli beat Torino 2-0 to go top of the table. No fixtures were played on Friday or Saturday because of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, meaning the full round of Serie A matches took place on Sunday and yesterday. Matias Soule’s first-half strike for Roma knocked Inter off top spot earlier in the day before new Napoli opened up a three-point buffer with victory in Sunday’s
Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa yesterday set a women’s only world record of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds as she won the London Marathon, while Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe put a star-studded men’s field to the sword. For 28-year-old Assefa it was ample compensation for finishing runner-up in London and the Paris Olympics last year — especially as bitter Dutch rival, the Ethiopia-born Sifan Hassan, finished third. Assefa dropped Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei as the race, played out in blazing sunshine and with thousands lining the route, entered its business end. She came home almost three minutes clear of the Kenyan. Hassan, who beat her in
FOCUS: ‘We came out here with a goal in mind ... to keep our foot on their throat and on their neck, and continue to play 48 minutes of basketball,’ Donovan Mitchell said The Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday thrashed the Miami Heat to cruise into the next round of the NBA playoffs as the Golden State Warriors battled past the Houston Rockets 109-106 to move to the brink of a series victory. After pounding Miami 124-87 in game three on Saturday, No.1 Eastern Conference seeds Cleveland once again piled on the misery for their outclassed opponents with a crushing 138-83 victory to complete a 4-0 series win. The 55-point drubbing was the largest series-clinching victory in NBA playoff history and sets up a series against either the Indiana Pacers or Milwaukee Bucks in
Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds said it felt like an “impossible dream” when fellow Hollywood A-lister Rob McElhenney first floated the idea of buying soccer club Wrexham, along with a pitch for a documentary. The ultimate goal was reaching the Premier League. Four years after they purchased the north Wales outfit, Wrexham are one league away from achieving their lofty goal after a 3-0 win over Charlton Athletic on Saturday saw them promoted for a record third consecutive time. “We were standing there doing a press conference four years ago, and said our goal is to make it to the Premier League, and
RSS