At the Taekwondo World Championship in Manchester, current European champion Kristina Tomić won the bronze medal, repeating her success from last year, reports HRT on May 18, 2019.
While Tomić was free in the first round of the competition, in the second round, she beat French competitor Sarah Adidou 26:6, Azerbaijani Patimat Abakarov 12:3 and Tunisian Ikram Dhahri 14:10.
In the semifinal, Tomić lost to the two-time Olympic winner, Chinese competitor Jingyu Wu, who won 30-12. Tomić did, however, complain of foot pain, though Jingyu Wu was also just too strong for the Croatian athlete. Recall, Jingyu Wu also beat Lucija Zaninović at the London Olympics and in two world championships.
This is the second consecutive world medal for Kristina Tomić after the bronze in Korea two years ago.
Croatia had another strong competitor for the bronze medal two days before the end of the championship, but Nikita Glasnović dramatically ended her campaign without a medal in the 57kg category.
Glasnović lost the quarterfinal fight for the medal to the Canadian of Korean origin Park (11-11, 11-14). Nikita led 7-0, and ten seconds before the end had an advantage of 11-7, though her rival managed to hit with her leg at Glasnović’s body twice for the tiebreaker.
Although Nikita was more active in that part of the battle, she was unable to prevail, and her dreams of the second world medal were shattered. Recall, Glasnović received her first medal in 2017 when she won the bronze at the World Championship in Muzu. However, at the time, Glasnović was still representing Sweden.
Somewhat unexpected and quite early in the competition, current European champion Toni Kanaet (74 kg) was eliminated in the third round. After he easily overcame Lebanese competitor Cheiban (18-3), he fell to Italian Alessio (8-29). The young Split native, however, has won medals in the last two European championships (gold in 2018 and silver in 2016), though he will have to wait two years until Wuxi for a chance at his first world medal.
On the fourth day of the competition at the Manchester Arena, Ana Taslak (53 kg), Matea Jelić (67 kg), Lovre Brečić (63 kg) and Luka Horvat (80 kg) will fight for Croatia.
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