by blid2def » Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:11 pm
Yeah... sweet Martina "Winona" Zubcic won a bronze medal, but it's a fight that shouldn't have taken place or continued, in my opinion.
She was fighting a Taiwan opponent who was obviously hurting from a previous fight. The latter was limping and fighting with one leg, and she did well enough to score points and take the game into the tie-breaker, losing in the end to a "sudden death" kick.
The fight was constantly disrupted for medical timeouts as the Taiwanese fighter kept falling to the ground in pain, hurting from her earlier injury (and she picked up a new one in the other leg as well). Although her will and fighting spirit should be applauded, I felt it did nobody any favours. The winner of the bout would have no glory defeating a "handicapped" opponent, while the Taiwanese fighter ran the risk of more seriously aggravating her injury. Felt the coach and ref didn't do a good job there in letting the lady decide if she could continue. They should've protected the fighter from herself.
On to nicer things - today saw the best bout of the games so far. The men's under-68kg semi-final bout between the Korean fighter (eventual gold medallist) and the Taiwanese fighter (eventual bronze medallist) was a sight to behold, with points being exchanged each time as a quick attack was effectively countered with an equally quick counter-attack.
Good stuff today, hope we'll have more of the same tomorrow.