After boxing, swimming, and weightlifting, taekwondo won the fourth ticket to the 2018 Youth Olympic Games by female player Ho Thi Kim Ngan at the World Junior Taekwondo Championships in Hammamet, Tunisia.
Player Ho Thi Kim Ngan won the Gold medal at the World Junior Taekwondo Championships (photo by TDTT)
The World Junior Taekwondo Championships and the World Taekwondo Qualification Tournament for the Youth Olympic Games, which takes place from April 6 to April 13 in Hammamet, Tunisia with a total of 438 athletes from 111 nations competing in 10 weight classes at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games.
Attending the tournament, the Vietnam Taekwondo team has 15 members, including 8 players, led by Mr. Truong Ngoc De – the President of Taekwondo Vietnam.
At the tournament, athletes competed in 10 weight classes: male -48 kg, -55 kg, -63 kg, -73 kg and over 73 kg; female -44 kg, -49 kg, -55 kg, -63 kg and over 63 kg. The 8 athletes ranked highest in each weight class will win the ticket for that country to send athletes to attend the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires – Argentina. The host country is naturally selected to participate in six weight classes at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, so in the weight classes with the host country athletes, only seven athletes will win tickets at this Qualification Tournament.
In the female’s 49 kg weight class, 52 athletes competed, player Kim Ngân demonstrated excellent results in successive victories with a convincing win over Lama Ayasha (Nepal) with the score at 23-1, Fariah Rafaela (Portugal) with the score at 22-0 and Pirseyidova Sevda (Azerbaijan) with the score at 20-0 to qualify for the quarterfinals.
At the tournament, Kim Ngan continued to beat Petrocchi Chiara (Aruba) with the score at 23-20 in the quarterfinal and Goebel Laura (Germany) with the score at 10-6 in the semi-finals. Entering into the final, Kim Ngan continued to show her excellent performance when she won the Canadian player Kafada Josipa with a narrow score of 8-7 to successfully defend the World Junior Championships. At the 2016 World Junior Championships, Kim Ngan won the Gold medal under the weight of 44 kg for female even though she has been familiar with taekwondo for less than three years.
Before that, Kim Ngan won the ticket for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games when she beat out Atista De Souza (Brazil) and Hughes Roxana (Guatemala) to attend the 49 kg quarter-final, it means that she will be present at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games held in Argentina in October. Kim Ngan became the fourth athlete of Vietnam to win the official ticket to attend the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, after Nguyen Huu Kim Son (16 years old, swimming), Do Hong Ngoc (18, boxing) and 1 female athlete in weightlifting.
Minh Anh