Tokyo Olympics 2020 Men’s 68kg Taekwondo: Ulugbek Rashitov of Uzbekistan wins Gold

Tokyo Olympics 2020 Men’s 68kg Taekwondo: Ulugbek Rashitov of Uzbekistan wins Gold

Ulugbek Rashitov celebrates after gold medal win at Tokyo Olympics 2020

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Ulugbek Rashitov of Uzbekistan did his nation proud at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Rashitov struck Gold in the men’s Taekwondo 68kg category, seeing off the challenge from Great Britain’s Bradly Sinden. This was Uzbekistan’s first-ever gold medal in Taekwondo. A total of 17 competitors from 17 nations took part in the martial art event, held on the 25th of July primarily.

Ulugbek Rashitov scored 34 after the completion of three rounds, while Bradly Sinden scored 29 and was 6 away from the Gold medal mark. Many are considering this win to be an upset, since Sinden was the favourite to win the gold medal. A distraught Sinden had to settle for the silver medal.

Barring the round of 16, Ulugbek Rashitov coasted to gold medal win

Ulugbek Rashitov
Ulugbek Rashitov

Ulugbek Rashitov was just unstoppable. He was placed in Pool A, and took on Seydou Fofana in the first round. He beat the Malian quite easily scoring 38 as opposed to his 17. Then came Rashitov’s real test, against Lee Dae-hoon of South Korea. The Uzbek won by a narrow margin of 2, scoring 21 while the South Korean scored 19.

The coast was quite clear after that, as Rashitov earned convincing victories over Mirhashem Hosseini in the quarterfinals and Nedzad Husic in the semi-finals.

For Sinden, the path to the final was much simpler. He began with a 53-8 drubbing against Tom Burns of New Zealand in the Round of 16, before easily going past Hakan Recber and Zhao Shuai.

Hakan Recber and Zhao Shuai settle for bronze

Zhao Shuai
Bradly Sinden on his way to victory against Zhao Shuai

A lot was expected of Zhao Shuai, the 2016 Rio Olympics Gold medallist. He had a close call in the Round of 16 against Abdullah Sediqi of Afghanistan before going on to defeat Bernardo Pie in the quarterfinals, 13-8. However, the semi-finals was too tough for the former Olympic Gold medalist, as he succumbed to Sinden, 25-33. In the Bronze medal match, Shuai took on Lee Dae-hoon and beat him in a close 17-15 contest, to seal the bronze medal.

Hakan Recber of Turkey won the bronze medal as well. Recber beat Edival Pontes in the Round of 16, then lost to Sinden in the quarter-finals, but got a chance through the repechage. He then beat Tom Burns and Nedzad Husic to win the bronze medal.

Also Read: Zhao Shuai Net Worth: Know all about The Chinese Taekwondo practitioner, Bio, Career achievements, Coach, Parents, and more

Also Read: Jang Jun Net Worth: Know all about The South Korean taekwondo practitioner, Bio, Career achievements, Coach, Parents, and more