Hungary and Serbia Score on Day 6 in Guadalajara

The Guadalajara 2022 World Taekwondo Championships crowned two new world champions today, from Serbia and Hungary.

On Day 6 of this seven-day tournament, the W-73kg and the M-54kg world titles were up for grabs in Guadalajara’s Centro Acuatico CODE Metropolitano. But before the action got underway, a special ceremony was held on the field of play.

It was “adios” from legendary Mexican fighter Maria “Fist of Fury” Espinoza. The triple Olympic medalist and former world champion received a special award to mark her retirement.

-73kg

This weight class saw current World Champion Da-bin Lee of Korea – who in her earlier fights looked relaxed, professional and very dangerous with her ax kick – defend her title against Nadica Bozanic of Serbia.

Lee has superb flexibility and she tried to land her ax kick from the get-go. But it was the Serbian, aiming more conservative kicks at the body, who started landing first, going 3-1 up. The Korean spin kicked to the head and fell, in what would become a trend throughout the fight. Round 1 ended 12-7 to the Serbian challenger.

Round 2 started with head kicks flying before Lee landed and

-54kg

The final in this category saw hometown hero Cesar Rodriguez take on Omar Salim of Hungary. Rodriguez is a fighter’s fighter, boasting endless stamina and a firework display of technique. But he had fought an ultra-tough battle in the semis against Korea’s Jun-seo Bae, that must have sapped his energy.

Salim, by contrast, is a stylish proponent of flamboyant technique, who had had an easier fight in the semis.

Round 1 started fast. Salim has a world-class punch, which opened the scoring. Then the Hungarian enlisted his head kickand with his target radar locked on, lit up the board with lightning techniques - and looked relaxed and stylish doing it: Talk about peaking at a final!

Round one ended 14-3 to Salim.

In the second, Salim opened fire with his long, high ax kick.

His arsenal mixes punches and stabbing side kicks, with close-in round kicks and an arcing ax kick fired from a loose, low stance. Rodriguez seemed unable to get into gear, or to penetrate Salim’s defense. Comfortably ahead on the board, Salim spent the last seconds retreating – and was penalized for it - but it ended 11-9 in Round 2.

It was a brilliant win for the Hungarian, while the crowd were offered a superb display of top-tier Taekwondo.

In a nice WT family coincidence, Salim’s coach and father, Gergely, had won the world title at Athens in 1991 at 19 - the same age his son grabbed gold in Guadalajara.

Bae – who had battled Rodriguez in possibly the most action-packed bout of these championships – and Po-yen Chen of Chinese Taipei won bronzes.

-58kg