A day after South Korea went without a medal, taekwondo practitioner Park Tae-joon made sure the dry spell would not last any longer, winning the gold medal in the men's lightest weight class on Wednesday. Park was declared the winner by withdrawal in the final of the -58-kilogram event, with Gashim Magomedov of Azerbaijan throwing in a towel due to an apparent lower body injury in the second round. In the best-of-three format, Park was well on his way to a victory by final score. He won the opening round 9-0 and enjoyed a commanding 13-1 lead when the match was called with 1:02 left in the second round. South Korea has now won 12 gold medals, just one shy of its record for a Summer Olympics. There are four days of competition left, with South Korea expected to contend for medals in a few remaining events. The list includes men's high jump, where Woo Sang-hyeok is regarded as a medal threat. On Wednesday, he made it out of the qualification stage with ease, finishing tied for third by jumping 2.27 meters . Woo, who finished fourth at the Tokyo Olympics with a then-national record height of 2.35m, will be pursuing his first Olympic medal in the final on Saturday. South Korea has never won a medal in a track and field event, with both of its athletics medals having come in men's marathon. Also on Wednesday, Woo Haram qualified for the final in the men's 3-meter springboard diving event by finishing ninth out of 18 divers in the semifinal with 432.00 points. This will be his second straight appearance in the 3m springboard final. He finished fourth in the event in Tokyo three years ago. After the opening round of the women's golf tournament, Amy Yang was the top South Korean at an even 72. She is tied for 13th, seven strokes back of the sole leader, Celine Boutier of France. In table tennis, South Korea lost to mighty China 3-0 in the quarterfinals of the men's team event. Cho Dae-seong, Jang Woo-jin and Lim Jong-hoon failed to win a match against Wang Chuqin, Fan Zhendong and Ma Long. The men's team even t made its Olympic debut in 2008 and South Korea failed to reach at least the semifinals for the first time. Sport climbing medal hopeful Lee Do-hyun was sent packing in the semifinal of the men's combined event, after finishing 17th in the lead semifinal on Wednesday. he had been 10th in the bouldering semifinal on Monday. Lee needed to be among the top eight overall to advance to the final but ranked 15th out of 20 climbers. In wrestling, Kim Seung-jun lost to Rustam Assakalov of Uzbekistan 8-2 in one of two repechage matches in the men's 97-kilogram Greco-Roman event. Kim would have reached the bronze medal match with a win. Source : Yonhap News Agency
