Welterweight (≤67 kilograms), Women

With the 2008 and 2012 champion, South Korea’s Hwang Gyeong-Seon, not taking part in Rio, the battle for gold favored Haby Niaré of France, the 2013 world champion and top seed in Rio. Known as “Abigator” by her team-mates, she had a great 2015 season capped with a Grand Series Final win. She was known for her famous and rare ‘scorpion kick’ to the head from close range.

The second seed, Elin Johansson of Sweden, reached the quarter-final in London in 2012 and was a bronze medallist at the 2015 European Games and was renowned for her powerful head attacks. Also in contention was the highly experienced 2015 world champion Chuang Chia-Chia of Chinese Taipei, who was the third seed. Nur Tatar of Turkey was another experienced fighter and was seeded fourth. She won the silver medal in 2012 and was also a silver medallist in the 2015 World and 2016 European Championships. Another one to watch was the reigning 73kg World Champion Oh Hye-Ri of South Korea, who lost weight in order compete in the welterweight division and consequently was one of the stronger fighters in this division, which also featured 17-year- old Nigora Tursunkulova of Uzbekistan. the youngest competitor in the entire taekwondo competition.

Nairé scraped through her opening bout 5-4 against Aniya Louissant of Haiti but Elin Johansson lost on superiority to the youngster Tursunkulova (after drawing 2-2), and Chuang Chia-chia and Oh Hye-ri progressed to the quarter-finals with relative ease. It was another close 5-4 win for Niaré in the quarters, this time against Ruth Gbagbi of the Ivory Coast, as she set up a semi-final meeting with Turkey’s Tatar. This time the Niaré was taken to sudden-death before winning through to the final. The other semi-final saw Hye-ri, who beat Chia-Chia 21-9 in the quarters, pitched against Fəridə Əzizova of Azerbaijan, who ended the dreams of the 17-year-old Tursunkulova. It was the South Korean Oh Hye-ri who went on to meet Niaré in the final after a narrow 6-5 victory.

The number one seed Niaré had to endure yet another close encounter, but this time she lost and had to settle for the silver medal after a 12-13 defeat by the sixth seeded Korean. Niaré led 1-0 after the first round with a later kick. The French woman scored early in the second but two quick kicking attacks and knocking Niaré to the ground saw Hye-ri built 10-4 lead in round two. Nairé attacked in the final round but, despite winning it 8-3, she lost the contest by one point.

The bronze medals went to Nur Tatur and the number nine seed Ruth Gbagbi, who made history as the first Ivory Coast athlete to win a Taekwondo medal, as she became only the second athlete from her country to win an Olympic medal after track athlete Gabriel Tiacoh won the 400 metres silver medal in 1984. Remarkably, after a 32-year wait for their second Olympic medal, Ivory Coast won their third medal just over an hour later when Cheick Sallah Cissé in the men’s taekwondo welterweight division gave his country not only its third medal but its first ever Olympic gold.