Olympic taekwondo results August 18: Jones, Abughaush win gold in featherweight
By John Buhler
Day 2 of Olympic taekwondo at Rio saw Great Britain’s Jade Jones and Jordan’s Ahmad Abughaush win gold in their respective featherweight weight classes.
Day 2 of Olympic taekwondo saw eight individuals take home medals in their respective featherweight weight classes. Great Britain had Jade Jones win the women’s 57 kilogram weight class as the event’s top seed, going all the way through the day unscathed. Winning gold in the men’s 58 kilogram weight class was Jordan’s Ahmad Abughaush, who knocked off a few higher seed’s as the men’s tournament’s No. 10 seed.
Joining Jones on the women’s featherweight medal podium were Spain’s Eva Calvo Gomez winning the silver medal and both Egypt’s Hedaya Wahba and Iran’s Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin taking home bronze medals.
Calvo Gomez was the No. 2 seed in the 57 kilogram weight class and her only defeat was to Jones in the finals. Alizadeh Zenoorin was the tournament’s No. 10 seed, falling to only silver medalist Calvo Gomez in the quarterfinals before redeeming herself in repechage. Wahba was the tournament’s No. 3 seed and earned the other bronze in repechage after falling to Calvo Gomez in the semifinals.
MEDAL RESULT | Women's 57 kg
As the men’s featherweight champions, Abughaush had to win four straight matches as the underdog to win Olympic gold. He topped No. 7 seed Ghofran Zaki of Egypt in the preliminaries, eventual bronze medalist in South Korea’s No. 2 seed Lee Daehoon in the quarterfinals, another bronze medalist in Spain’s No. 6 seed Joel Gonzalez Bonilla in the semifinals, and No. 4 seed Alexey Denisenko of Russia in the finals.
Denisenko knocked off top seed Jaouad Achab of Belgium in the semifinals to earn a silver medal. Lee and Gonzalez Bonilla were able to redeem themselves with stellar performances in the repechage stage of the tournament.
MEDAL RESULT | Men's 68 kg
Through the first two days of Olympic taekwondo, upsets have become a normal part of these tournaments. While Jones and Calvo Gomez did what was essentially expected on them in the women’s division by finishing first and second respectively, the top two seeds in the men’s side failed to even medal.
Next: 50 greatest Summer Olympians in history
With two more days of Olympic taekwondo in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on the slate, will their continue to be as many upsets as there have been in the first two days of competition? We will just have to wait and see how it all ultimately unfolds in the final days of the 2016 Rio Games.