Park Tae-jun (20, Kyung Hee University), who won the gold medal in men’s taekwondo for Korea for the first time in 16 years, shared his pleasant feelings in English.
On the 8th (Korean time), Park Tae-jun won the gold medal by defeating Gasim Magomedov (26th, Azerbaijan) by a forfeit in the men’s 58kg final of the taekwondo at the 2024 Paris Olympics held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France.
At around 53 seconds into the match, Park Tae-jun and Magomedov exchanged kicks, and their shins collided. Magomedov complained of severe pain in his left leg and fell, and the match was briefly stopped.
After that, with 1 minute and 2 seconds left in the second round when Park Tae-jun was leading with a round score of 2-0 (9-0 13-1), Magomedov fell down again while holding his left leg. In the end, Magomedov expressed that he could no longer compete and hugged Park Tae-jun, and Park Tae-jun’s victory was confirmed.
After the match, Park Tae-jun could not hide his joy in an interview with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), saying, “It’s like a dream, that’s exactly right.”
When asked to share his thoughts in English, he cheerfully replied, “I feel so amazing!”
With Park Tae-jun’s gold medal, Korean taekwondo, which had been stuck with ‘no gold’ at the 2020 Tokyo Games, washed away its sorrow. At that time, Korea won 1 silver and 2 bronze. Furthermore, this is the first time that a Korean athlete has won a gold medal in the men’s 58 kg class at the Olympics. Despite being the dominant country, Korea has struggled in the men’s 58 kg class. This is the first time in 12 years since Lee Dae-hoon (retired) advanced to the finals in the 2012 London Games. At that time, Lee Dae-hoon lost in the finals and had to settle for a silver medal. Also, with this gold medal, the streak of gold medals for Korean men’s taekwondo was resumed after Cha Dong-min won the men’s over-80kg class at the 2008 Beijing Games. With Park Tae-jun, who was the first of the four Korean athletes to compete in the Olympics, achieving a historic gold medal, Korean taekwondo can now aim for a ‘multi-gold’ title. 토토사이트