Chanatip kicks down Li for gold
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Thai keeps her composure in the final round to score emphatic win
Chanatip Sonkham produced a scintillating performance to take the gold medal in emphatic style with a comprehensive 10-3 win over China’s Li Zhaoyi in the women’s 49kg taekwondo event.
Showing plenty of grit in the final at Ganghwa Dolmens gymnasium, the 23-year-old London Olympics bronze medallist had to dig deep to ensure Thailand launched their taekwondo campaign with a gold, only the second for the country in Asian Games history.
After sweeping aside her Kazakh rival Zhazira Saparbek in the round of 16, the Thai from Phattalung province faced tough tests in the next two rounds.
She first braved a hostile crowd to beat host fighter Park Seo-nah 9-6 in the quarter-finals before squeezing into the final with a nerve-shredding 4-3 semi-final victory over Taiwan’s Sun Nuei Ning.
With only Li, who was 2010 Asian Junior Champion, standing between her and the gold, Chanatip came out firing on all cylinders to take a 3-0 lead with a kick that found her Chinese rival’s head.
After having another three points chalked off by a successful Chinese appeal early in the second round, Chanatip then let her opponent back into the contest. Li earned a point for the Thai’s inactivity then drew level at 3-3 with a more attacking style.
With the bout on a knife edge heading into the final round, Chanatip kept her composure to take control with two more precision kicks that found Li’s head and secured the emphatic win.
“I thank everyone for the support they gave me. I almost missed the Games due to a knee injury. But the coaching staff and team-mates helped me a lot and stood by me.
“I’ve been feeling the pain since the preliminary rounds and needed to take a pain-killing injection. I followed the instructions of my coach, which helped me win the gold. I would like to offer this title to every Thai,” said a delighted Chanatip.
Sarita Phongsri, another Thai medal hopeful in taekwondo, was unable to reproduce the form that helped her to the title at the previous Games in Guangzhou.
After outscoring her first-round opponent from the Philippines, the 22-year-old Sarita was bundled out of the competition in the women’s 53kg category, going down to Iran’s Sousan Hajipourgoli in a sudden-death decider after their quarter-final ended level on 6-all.
It was a bitter loss for the Kasetsart University student, who four years ago won Thailand’s first-ever Asiad gold in the Korean martial art and this time came within seconds of winning round-two
bout before the Iranian levelled things at the death to force the decider.
Following Sarita out of the door was Peerathep Sila On, who succumbed to a crushing 13-1 quarter-final loss to Uzbekistan’s Nikita Rafalovich in the men’s 74kg class.
Nattapat Tantramart rounded off the day for the Thai team by claiming a bronze medal in the men’s 87kg division. He just missed out on a semi-final spot after slumping to a narrow 11-9 loss to Maksat Abdrambek of Kazakhstan in the last eight.
