Champion Hwang through to taekwondo final

Reigning champion Hwang Kyung-Seon reached a second straight Olympic final on Friday in the women's under-67kg taekwondo division.

South Korea's Hwang, the overwhelming favourite, will meet fifth seed Nur Tatar of Turkey.

Due to taekwondo's seeding procedure, the twice world champion and gold medallist from Beijing was seeded only three in London.

The top seed was African champion Seham Elsawalhy of Egypt, who crashed out in the second round of last year's World Championships.

Even reigning world champion Sarah Stevenson of Britain was only seeded four.

And while Elsawalhy flopped again in the first round, beaten easily 6-0 by Elin Johansson of Sweden, Hwang marched into the final.

She beat Ruth Gbagbi of Ivory Coast 4-1 and then ousted Germany's Helena Fromm 8-4.

She went into the final round of her semi against Slovenia's Franka Anic scoreless but soon picked up three points with a head kick, setting her on the way to a 7-0 victory.

Stevenson, who lost both her parents to cancer since winning the world title, could not find her best form after a long lay-off and was beaten 5-1 by American Paige McPherson in the first round.

McPherson fell to Tatar meaning Stevenson will not even get a chance of bronze through the repechage.

The men's under-80kg final will be contested between Spain's Nicolas Garcia and Sebastian Crismanich of Argentina.

With world champion Farzad Abdollahi of Iran and world number one Aaron Cook of Britain not selected by their countries, this category was always going to be wide open.

Garcia beat Iran's world under-87kg champion Yousef Karami in the first round before also beating Britain's European under-87kg champion Lutalo Muhammad.

Both Karami and Muhammad had been brought down a weight because their category is not part of the Olympic programme and selected above ABdollahi and Cook.

Muhammad can still progress if he wins his repechage bout later Friday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/champion-hwang-taekwondo-final-181621761.html

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