top of page
Writer's pictureCain Bradley

Taekwondo 2016 Rio Olympic Review

Updated: Sep 20, 2022

Men’s Flyweight

This tournament was thrown open in the preliminary 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 went out to Zhao Shuai (China) but Hanprab kept his run up. He would come up against another surprise semi-finalist in Luisito Pie (Dominican Republic) who had defeated number three seed Rui Bragança (Portugal). Hanprab would defeat 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

As opposed to the flyweight division, the two seeds looked superb when opening with big wins. The only real shock came as number three Saul Gutierrez (Mexico) lost to Purevjavyn Temuujin (Mongolia). Into the quarter-finals and the top side of the draw looked stronger as Alexey Denisenko (Russia) went 13 points up against Servet Tazegul (Turkey) whilst Jaouad Achab (Belgium) also looked good 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 one and two 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

A couple of big seeds fell in the first round as Aaron Cook (Moldova) went out 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 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

The story of the heavyweight division came from Abdoul 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 would 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 Issoufou 🇳🇪

🥉Maicon Siqueira 🇧🇷

🥉Cha Dong-Min 🇰🇷


Women’s Flyweight

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 Tijuana 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

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. 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

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) beat Chuang Chia-Chia (Chinese Taipei) 21-9. She would continue her run onto the final where she would meet Haby Niaré (France) who overcome 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

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 🇬🇧

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page