Pneumatised!

In an exciting match with South Korea’s Hwang Kyungseon, Karine Sergerie loses 2-1 and is awarded a silver medal.

Hwang Kyungseon is the welterweight World Taekwondo Champion for 2007 while Sergerie is the lightweight World Taekwondo Champion. A little lighter and shorter than Hwang, Sergerie had to work hard to shorten the distance between her and her opponent to land a kick scoring one point. Although having an early lead from the first round, Sergerie could not prevent Hwang from tying it up with a roundhouse kick under Sergerie’s arm in the second round. Hwang then took the lead late in the third round with a strong back kick leaving Sergerie 35 seconds to try to tie the match up. The final 35 seconds of the gold match was tense and fierce as Sergerie put more pressure on her opponent hoping to score another point to push the match into sudden death overtime. Unfortunately, 35 seconds was not enough time. Hwang stayed strong trying to increase the point gap and holding Sergerie off until the buzzer. Korea’s Hwang Kyungseon wins the gold medal in the women’s 67 kg leaving a silver for Canada’s Karine Sergerie.

Earlier in this competition, Hwang defeated Sheikha Maitha Almaktoum of the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) in the preliminary match by a score of 5-1. Hwang then defeated Croatia’s Sandra Saric in the quarterfinals by a score of 3-1. In the semifinals, she defeated France’s Gwladys Patience Epangue in overtime with a score of 2-1 sending Epangue to the bronze medal match. Overall, she had a better fight record than Sergerie in this competition.

Both Sergerie and Hwang should be pround. They fought excellently. Sergerie knew going in that she might have to fight heavier opponents and she gave her opponent a good fight for the gold. No shame, be proud Sergerie, you did an excellent job representing Canadian taekwondo. There’s always the 2012 Olympics.

The bronze medal winners in this competition are Croatia’s Sandra Saric (who was defeated in the quarterfinals by Hwang) and France’s Gwladys Patience Epangue (who was also defeated by Hwang, although later in the semifinals).

In the men’s 80 kg, Iran’s Hadi Saei defeated Italy’s Mauro Sarmiento in the finals by a score of 6-4 capturing the gold medal and leaving Sarmiento with a silver medal. Bronze medal winners are China’s Zhu Guo and Steven Lopez of the U.S.A. China’s Zhu defeated Great Britain’s Aaron Cook by a score of 4-1, and U.S.A.’s Steven Lopez defeated Azerbaijan’s Rashad Ahmadov by a score of 3-2. Canada’s Sebastien Michaud lost the quarterfinal match to Azerbaijan’s Ahmadov and was not entered into the repechage as Ahmadov did not make it to the finals (gold medal match).

Summary:

Women’s 67 kg
Gold Korea Hwang Kyungseon
Silver Canada Karine Sergerie
Bronze Croatia Sandra Saric
Bronze France Gwladys Patience Epangue

Men’s 80 kg
Gold Iran Hadi Saei
Silver Italy Mauro Sarmiento
Bronze U.S.A. Steven Lopez
Bronze China Zhu Guo

Congrats to all the medalists! Way to go, Karine!

Links:
Results courtesy of the Beijing Olympics website
TSN’s article on Karine winning silver
CBC article on Sergerie winning silver
Globe and Mail article about Karine winning silver (Note: the article is incorrect. You are NOT allowed to punch to the head in Olympic taekwondo. There are two taekwondo federations, International Taekwondo (ITF) in North Korea and World Taekwondo (WTF) in South Korea. WTF is featured in the Olympics and no punches are allowed to the head, just the body. You get two points for kick to the head and one point for a punch or a kick to the body.)

~~~C

P.S. It doesn’t look like CBC will be providing a live feed for the remaining taekwondo competitions – men’s and women’s heavyweights. That is disappointing. In fact, I couldn’t get a live feed this morning to watch the bronze medal matches or any of the men’s matches. I think CBC needs to re-think their Olympic coverage plans for the future. You can get updates via the Beijing Olympic website.