Double Olympic champion Chen Zhong won China's second gold at
the Taekwondo World Championships by defeating Han Jin Sun of South
Korea 5-4 in the women's +72kg final in Beijing on Tuesday.
In the final match, Chen led throughout taking all three bouts
(3-2, 4-2, 5-4), thus cementing her position as the first Chinese
fighter to complete a Grand Slam of the Olympic, World Cup and
World Championships titles.
The 25-year-old Chen discovered taekwondo in 1995, abandoning
her former passion for basketball. Blessed with physical strength,
rapid reflexes and a lethal high kick, she swept the 2000 Sydney
and 2004 Athens Olympics and grabbed the gold
in the 72kg weight class at the 2001 World Cup.
"I won the gold at my first Olympic Games but the World
Championships are replete with more participants with great
strength," commented Chen who also won two silvers and one bronze
in previous worlds. She added that her title had been won on the
back of former failures, such as the leg injury that prevented her
from competing since 2004. Chen has now set herself up as a firm
favorite ahead of the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
According to the regulations from the World Taekwondo Federation
(WTF), each nation may send four athletes (two women, two men) to
the Olympics with China set to finalize its roster next month.
Now the championships have ended, China and Spain sat atop the
medal tables with two golds and one bronze apiece only behind South
Korea who dominated with four golds, four silvers and four
bronzes.
Wu Jingyu claimed the women's 48kg title on the first day while
injury-plagued Luo Wei fell to Korean Lee In Jong in the semifinal
of the women's under 72kg on Sunday. The male fighters failed to
emulate their female peers since top-ranked Liu Xiaobo lost out in
the quarter-finals.
"Although we had two golds, we were sub-par in the middle weight
categories," said Lu Xiudong, head coach of the China women's team,
adding that future training strategies would be geared towards the
European teams which dominated the championships. "The European
fighting styles will blaze a new path in taekwondo development," He
added.
(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, May 23, 2007)
