Taekwondo 2016 Rio Olympic Review

Men’s Flyweight (-58kg)

This tournament was thrown wide open in the preliminarys round as the top two seeds, Farzan Ashourzadeh (Iran) and Kim Tae-Hun (South Korea) were upset by Omar Hajjimi (Morocco) and Tawin Hanprab (Thailand). Hajjimi's run ended in the next round against Zhao Shuai (China), but Hanprab kept his run up. He came up against another surprise semi-finalist in Luisito Pie (Dominican Republic), who had defeated number three seed Rui Bragança (Portugal). Hanprab defeated Pie in the semi-final to make the final, where he came up against Shuai who defeated him 6-4.

🥇Zhao Shuai 🇨🇳

🥈Tawin Hanprab 🇹🇭

🥉Luisito Pie 🇩🇴

🥉Kim Tae-Hun 🇰🇷

Men’s Featherweight (-68kg)

Unlike the flyweight division, the two seeds looked superb, when opening with big wins. The only major upset came as number three Saul Gutierrez (Mexico) was beaten by Purevjavyn Temuujin (Mongolia). By the quarter-finals, the top side of the draw looked stronger as Alexey Denisenko (Russia) defeated Servet Tazegul (Turkey) by 13 points, whilst Jaouad Achab (Belgium) also looked strong in getting a win. Ahmad Abughaush (Jordan) defeated Lee Dae-Hoon (South Korea), the number two seed and moved on to the semi-final, where he defeated Joel Gonzalez (Spain). In the other semi-final, Denisenko got a 6-1 win over Achab and headed to the final as favourite, only to be upset by Abughaush. The battle between the top two seeds did happen, only for the bronze medal though and Dae-Hoon came out the winner with an 11-7 score.

🥇Ahmad Abughaush 🇯🇴

🥈Alexey Denisenko 🇷🇺

🥉Lee Dae-Hoon 🇰🇷

🥉Joel Gonzalez 🇪🇸

Men’s Welterweight (-80kg)

A couple of big seeds fell in the first round as Aaron Cook (Moldova) fell to Liu Wei-Ting (Chinese Taipei) and Steven Lopez (United States) beat Albert Gaun (Russia). In the quarter-final, the dominant performance of the round came from Milad Beigi (Azerbaijan), who beat the number one seed Mehdi Khodabakhsi (Iran) 17-5. It was a slightly surprising final lineup of Lutalo Muhammad (Great Britain) and Cheick Sallah Cissé (Ivory Coast). Muhammad led throughout the majority of the bout, including with seconds to go, however, a spinning kick from Cisse landed to give him a momentous gold medal.

🥇Cheick Sallah Cisse 🇮🇪

🥈Lutalo Muhammad 🇬🇧

🥉Oussama Oueslati 🇹🇳

🥉Malad Beigi 🇦🇿

Men’s Heavyweight (+80kg)

The story of the heavyweight division came from Abdoul Razak Issoufou (Niger), who became the first medalist from Niger since 1972. He defeated the fifth, fourth and first seed on the way to the final, all by comprehensive margins. It was Radik Isayev (Azerbaijan) who beat him in the final, winning 6-2. The two men who made the semi-finals, Mahama Cho (Great Britain) and Dmitriy Shokin (Uzbekistan), were both upset in the repechage, leaving them without medals.

🥇Radik Isayev 🇦🇿

🥈Abdoul Razak Issoufou 🇳🇪

🥉Maicon Siqueira 🇧🇷

🥉Cha Dong-Min 🇰🇷

Women’s Flyweight (-49kg)

In the preliminary round, all of the higher seeds went through to the quarter-finals. The quarter-finals went the opposite way, as all the higher seeds were defeated. The performances were especially impressive in the top half of the draw, as the pair won by big margins. A similar story occurred in the semi-final as Tijana Bogdanovic (Serbia) got a 7-0 win to make the final. The other semi-final came down to sudden death and Kim So-Hui (South Korea) managed to get the point to defeat Yasmina Aziez (France). The final was similarly close but So-Hui managed to steal the win away, winning 7-6.

🥇Kim So-Hui 🇰🇷

🥈Tijana Bogdanovic 🇷🇸

🥉Patimat Abakarova 🇦🇿

🥉Panipak Wongpattanakit 🇹🇭

Women’s Featherweight (-57kg)

This was the draw that went roughly to seeding. The number one and two were Jade Jones (Great Britain) and Eva Calvo (Spain). Jones was rarely troubled on her way to the final, whilst Calvo had to go to sudden death, when defeating the third seed Hedaya Malak (Egypt) in the semi-final. In the final, Jones led early and despite Calvo cutting the gap to one, she won comfortably 16-7.

🥇Jade Jones 🇬🇧

🥈Eva Calvo 🇪🇸

🥉Hedaya Malak 🇪🇬

🥉Kimia Alizadeh 🇮🇷

Women’s Welterweight (-67kg)

The only notable shock in the first round came as Elin Johansson (Sweden) went down by superiority to Nigora Tursunkulova (Uzbekistan). In the quarter-finals, the biggest win and only upset came as Oh Hye-Ri (South Korea) defeated Chuang Chia-Chia (Chinese Taipei) 21-9. She continued her run onto the final, where she met Haby Niaré (France), who overcame Nur Tatar (Turkey) in sudden death. The final was a high-scoring affair and it benefitted the Korean, who managed to get the win by a point.

🥇Oh Hye-Ri 🇰🇷

🥈Haby Niaré 🇫🇷

🥉Nur Tatar 🇹🇷

🥉Ruth Gbagbi 🇨🇮

Women’s Heavyweight (+67kg)

Another draw that went almost perfectly to seeding, as within the main tournament there were only two upsets from a lower seed. It was ninth seed Wiam Dislam (Morocco) in the first round and finally, Zheng Shuyin (China) got a 5-1 victory over María Espinoza (Mexico), in the final to win the gold medal. Even the repechage went similarly to the form-book as Bianca Walkden (Great Britain) and Jackie Galloway (United States) won the bronze medals.

🥇Zheng Shuyin 🇨🇳

🥈Maria Espinoza 🇲🇽

🥉Jackie Galloway 🇺🇸

🥉Bianca Walkden 🇬🇧