Koreans claim second gold in taekwondo

Barnaby Chesterman

South Korea's Lee Sun-hee followed teammate Jung Jae-eun to the top of the podium in their national sport when she took gold in the under 67 kg category of the Olympic women's taekwondo competition on Friday night.

The 21-year-old Lee, a year older than Jung, who won the under 57 kg category on Thursday, beat Trude Gundersen of Norway in the final.

Lee took an early lead and never looked back, storming through for a 6-3 victory.

She celebrated with a lap of honour, carrying the Korean flag high above her head.

Angel Valodia Matos Fuentes became Cuba's first Olympic taekwondo gold medallist, beating Faissal Ebnoutalib in the men's under 80kgs final by a score of 3-1 to leave the German with yet another minor placing medal.

Ebnoutalib already has silver and bronze medals from the World Cup and World Championship.

The men's bronze medal fight was a contest between the two least popular fighters in the competition.

Roman Livaja of Sweden had just eliminated the Australian, Warren Hansen, while Victor Manuel Estrada Garibay of Mexico had beaten the crowd's favourite, N'Guessan Sebastien Konan of Ivory Coast.

Konan lacked technique against Estrada Garibay, but he had captured the hearts of the crowd and no-one received warmer applause when he left the mat.

All was forgiven, though, by the time the two bronze medal fighters took to the mat and Estrada Gabiray was a popular winner despite being roundly booed after his previous fight.

The women's bronze medal bout was an interesting affair, pitting the experienced Japanese fighter, Yoriko Okamoto against 17-year-old prodigy Sarah Stevenson of Britain.

The young Briton seemed a little overawed at first and was trailing 3-0 on points before she began working her way into the fight.

She staged a barnstorming recovery, but Okamoto held out to win 6-5.

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