Turkish athlete wins gold at Taekwondo championship

ISTANBUL

Turkish national athlete Merve Dinçel has bagged a gold medal at the World Taekwondo Championship, defeating top-ranked athlete Panipak Wongpattanakit of Thailand.

After passing the first round without a match, Dinçel defeated Ryadninskaya, who competed as an independent athlete, in the second round.

After defeating Dunya Ali Abutaleb from Saudi Arabia in the third round and Botakoz Kapanova from Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals, Dinçel made it to the semifinals, where she had a face-off against Adriana Cerezo Iglesias of Spain.

Beating the Spanish athlete, Dinçel entered the final to compete against the last Olympic champion Wongpattanakit in the women’s 49 kg final event.

Dinçel gave a tough fight to Wongpattanakit, a top-ranked athlete in the 49 kg category, and came out as a winner.

Meanwhile, Enbiya Taha Biçer and Hüseyin Kartal, who represented the country in men’s 87 kg and 80 kg categories, respectively, at the World Taekwondo Championships, were eliminated from the championship.

Competing in the 87 kg category, Biçer passed the first round without a match and defeated Dinko Segedin from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the second round. In the third round, Biçer got eliminated after losing 2-1 to Ivan Sapina, the number 2 seed from Croatia.

Kartal, who took to tatami in the 80 kg category in the championship, lost to Ismael Coulibaly from Mali in the first round.

The championship, which takes place in Baku from May 29 to June 4, features some of the greatest taekwondo competitors in the world and will count towards Olympic qualification.