KOREA’S TAEKWONDO STRUGGLE TO DEFEND OVERALL TITLE BUT FEELS CHINA’S ‘MOMENTUM’

The multi-day taekwondo competition at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games concluded on Monday. The first day after the opening ceremony, the Poomsae competition was held on the 24th, followed by four days of competition from the 25th.First introduced at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, the pomsae event was dropped from the team competition, leaving only the men’s and women’s individual events .In its place, mixed team events were added. A total of 13 gold medals were won, two in poomsae and 11 in kyokushin .Korea took home five of them. Kang Wan-jin (Hongcheon County Office) and Cha Ye-eun (Kyung Hee University) took home two in poomsae and three in taekwondo. Taekwondo standout Jang Jun (Korea Gas Corporation) opened the first day of competition with a win in the men’s 58-kilogram category on the 25th, followed by a “surprise win” by Park Hye Jin (Goyang City Hall) in the women’s 53-kilogram category the next day.On the 27th, Park Woo-hyuk (S-One, Korea) added another gold medal in the men’s 80-kilogram category, which was considered an “underdog” category. On the final day, Korea’s taekwondo team, riding high on a four-day gold streak, went for a sixth gold on the 28th, led by women’s standout Lee Da-bin (Seoul Metropolitan Government), but lost to China’s Zhou Zhiqi in the final and settled for silver. With five golds, a silver and two bronze medals, South Korea narrowly edged out host China for first place in the overall medal tally. China also won five gold and two bronze medals, but only one silver .This was South Korea’s ninth consecutive overall title, dating back to Seoul 1986, the first time taekwondo was included in the Asian Games. There was no taekwondo competition at the 1990 Beijing Games .The five gold medals equaled the total from the Jakarta-Palembang Games five years earlier (two poomsae and three grappling). However, the team took home five silver medals then, more than they did now. Before competing in the Hangzhou Asian Games, the Korean team set a goal of five gold medals. They achieved this goal. However, it is difficult to be satisfied. If you break it down, they lost to China (5) in the competition. If poomsae hadn’t been introduced at the 2018 Games, China would have won the overall title .In fact, the “home team” was the favorite in this competition. China directly threatened the “vassal state” of South Korea with its athletes’ propaganda and “host nation advantage “.This was most symbolized in the mixed team event final on the 25th.The Korean team of Park Woo-hyuk, Seo Gun-woo (Korea Gymnastics University), Lee Da-bin, and Kim Jandi (Samsung S-One) lost to the Chinese team (Chu Yiyang, Song Zhaoxiang, Song Zhe, and Zhou Zhiqi) by a combined score of 77-84 after three rounds .It was a close game until the very end, but if you analyze the game, you can see that the Chinese team suddenly improved their performance from the second round. After a 21-30 loss in Game 1, the Chinese started to gain momentum in Game 2 (39-27) as their fans filled the stands at the Lin’an Sports Culture and Exhibition Center in Hangzhou. The team scored with 15 seconds left in the game. After losing the match, Park Woo-hyuk admitted that the atmosphere was “one-sided,” saying, “The Chinese girls hit with a lot of (hand) holds. “I was looking forward to today, the last day, but I think there was a little bit of ‘attitude,’ and about four attacks that didn’t even hit her (Idabin) in the face were counted as points,” Jeong told Yonhap.”It was a ‘special’ Asian Games in many ways, and it should be seen that way,” he said, “but I also think it’s good that we brought home three gold medals in grappling, given the level of competition across Asia. “Chung was particularly pleased to see a gold medalist (Park Hye-jin) in the men’s heavyweight division, which has been considered a vulnerable weight class, and a gold medalist (Lee Da-bin) in the women’s division.”It’s encouraging,” says Jung. “The atmosphere in the women’s division improved with Park Hye-jin’s win,” he said, adding, “Generational change was another problem for us, but if we work with these athletes again for the Paris Olympics, I think the performance of both men and women will improve a lot .Unlike Chung, who looked back on the Hangzhou Asian Games in a positive light, Idabin said it was a wake-up call. Having to contend with a hostile atmosphere created by the Chinese crowd in both the mixed team and individual finals, Idabin said the “attitude” of his opponents was no excuse. The idea is that no matter what the conditions are, what you put out is what you get. Indeed, there’s no telling what conditions will be like at the 2024 Paris Olympics, when the Chinese and other world taekwondo powers will be on the next battlefield .Even then, Idabin believes that external factors such as venue, atmosphere, and judging cannot be used to justify a classic. “We don’t always win because we are the dominant nation. It’s true that there are no eternal winners in sports,” he says. “We can be better because we are a dominant force. “It’s true that there is no eternal winner in sports,” he explains, “but how you translate that into a real game is what’s important in this competition. “At the end of the day, you have to be constantly on your toes, and you have to keep improving. If you get a little bit lazy, you can quickly fall off,” 온라인카지노 he said, emphasizing that “now we have to race again with the goal of the Olympics.”

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