South Korea was shut out of gold medals on the opening day of sparring matches in taekwondo at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Friday, managing two bronze medals with one more day on the mat left.
An Hyang-sik took bronze in the men's -58-kilogram division in "kyorugi," or sparring, after losing to Tamirlan Tleules of Kazakhstan 2-1 in the semifinals at Toyohashi Gymnasium in Toyohashi, some 85 kilometers southeast of Nagoya. Moments later, Kwak Min-ju also grabbed bronze in the women's -67kg following her 2-0 loss to Ozoda Sobirjonova of Uzbekistan in the semifinals.
With no third-place contests, all semifinal losers were awarded bronze medals.
Earlier in the day, Lee Yu-min was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the women's 49kg event. Kang Jae-gwon suffered the same fate in the men's -80kg.
In taekwondo, kyorugi matches are contested in best-of-three rounds, with each round lasting two minutes. The first athlete to win two rounds wins, and scores and penalties reset at the end of each round.
An, who had also participated in virtual taekwondo earlier in the day, fought Tleules to a 4-4 tie in the first round but then won the next round 2-0. In the third round, both athletes scored five points, but Tleules had the edge because he recorded one head kick to An's none.
An was trying to become the third straight South Korean to win the Asiad title in his weight class.
Kwak's loss to Sobirjonova was not particularly close. The Uzbek practitioner landed five body kicks to take the first round 13-3, and then won the next round 21-2 while being credited with three head kicks, each worth three points.
South Korea has not had an Asiad champion in this weight division since 2006.
The birthplace of taekwondo, South Korea won five gold medals and nine medals overall in taekwondo at the 2023 Asian Games, including two gold medals in poomsae, the non-contact, demonstration discipline.
South Korea also swept up two poomsae titles here earlier in the week but is still awaiting its first kyorugi gold medal. (Yonhap)
