Atenean bags gold in World U taekwondo

MANILA, Philippines - Francis Aaron Agojo of Ateneo dished out a dominating performance en route to winning a gold medal in the 13th World University Taekwondo Championships Tuesday night in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China.

Agojo, a silver medalist in last year’s Southeast Asian Games and Asian Youth Games, beat Turkey’s Ibrahim Ether Pak by knockout to capture the mint in the kyorugi men’s -54kg hostilities.

On his way to the finals, the jin from Quezon City made shortwork of American Joseph Aguon, 14-2 (win by point gap) then outlasted Nakagawa Takaya of Japan in sudden death, 2-1.

Ibrahim beat Russian Soslan Baimatov, 10-4, to reach the gold medal match.

The other Pinoy bets fell short in the other divisions in Day 1 of the sparring hostilities.

Korina Paladin of Santo Tomas nipped Russian Mariia Smirkova, 13-6, to advance to the quarterfinals in the women’s -46kg but absorbed a 2-14 setback to Cyprus bet Irene Pasiouli to bow out of the medal rounds.

Arven Alcantara of National U didn’t go as far in the men’s 63-68kg as he fell to Russian Nikita Kriveichenko in the first round, 14-17. 

French Raihu Chin, Taiwanese Chia Yen Lin and Korean Cho Hueiun also pulled off golden performances for their respective countries.

Chin defeated Egyptian Ahmed Ghofran, 11-8, for the men’s 63-68kg crown while Chia turned back Hungarian Edin Brigis Kotsis, 5-2, for the women’s 53-57kg plum, and Cho scored a KO over Taiwanese Ming Yen Huang, for the women’s -46kg tiara.