Crismanich breaks Argentina gold drought

Crismanich breaks Argentina gold drought

Sebastian Crismanich struck the only point 22 seconds from the end of the final round Friday to claim the men's under-80kg Olympic taekwondo title Friday, Argentina's first gold medal of the Games.

Argentina's Sebastian Eduardo Crismanich (blue) fights against New Zealand's Vaughn Scott during their men's taekwondo bout. Crismanich went on to win gold.

The seventh seed snatched a tight final against fifth seed Nicolas Garcia 1-0, in the third and last round, to deny Spain a second gold of the taekwondo competition.

Lutalo Muhammad partly vindicated Great Britain's decision not to select world number one Aaron Cook as he beat Arman Yeremyan of Armenia 9-3 for the first bronze medal.

Italy's Mauro Sarmiento, the silver medallist four years ago, took the second bronze, beating Nesar Ahmad Bahawi of Afghanistan 4-0.

The final was as tight as it was a surprise affair.

Crismanich and Garcia largely negated each other until the Argentine struck with a straight kick to the midriff right at the death.

That they got to the final was in part helped by a couple of curious team selections.

Britain had overlooked Cook, who beat Muhammad's quarter-final conqueror Garcia last year, while Iran left out world champion Farzad Abdollahi.

In truth, both Britain and Iran picked champions in their places in under-87 world champion Yousef Karami, and European under-87kg champion Muhammad.

And while Karami failed to perform, beaten by Garcia in the first round and then again by Muhammad in the repechage, the Briton did at least deliver a medal.

And 21-year-old brushed off his selection controversy after claiming his medal.

"I'm just very proud I won a bronze medal for Team GB and I'm not thinking of anything else," he said.

Top seed Ramin Azizov of Azerbaijan went out to Sarmiento in the quarter-finals and second seed Issam Chernoubi lost in the first round to Bahawi.

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