Lee Da-bin wins bronze in women's taekwondo

Lee Da-bin grabbed a bronze medal in the women's heaviest weight class in taekwondo Saturday, giving South Korea its third medal in its traditional martial art at the Paris Olympics.

Lee defeated Lorena Brandl of Germany 2-1 (4-2, 5-9, 13-2) in one of the two bronze medal contests in the women's +67-kilogram event at Grand Palais in the French capital.

South Korea sent four taekwondo practitioners to Paris, and three of them came away with medals. Before Lee, Park Tae-joon won the men's -58kg title, and Kim Yu-jin claimed gold in the women's -57kg.

Seo Geon-woo lost in the bronze medal match for the men's -80kg on Friday.

Lee tried to improve on her silver medal from the Tokyo Olympics and appeared to be on her way there after knocking off Zhou Zeqi of China, who had beaten her for the 2023 Asian Games gold, in the quarterfinals.

But then Lee ran into Svetlana Osipova of Uzbekistan in the semifinals and lost in two rounds after giving up a few kicks to the head.

In the best-of-three format, Lee and Brandl split the first two rounds in their bronze medal match. Lee got a three-point kick to the head right after the start of the first round, while Brandl didn't get credited for any attack.

In the second round, though, the German was the more aggressive of the two and then turned a 5-4 lead into a 9-4 advantage in a hurry with consecutive two-point kicks to the body in the late moments.

Brandl looked spent by the start of the third round, and Lee took advantage by scoring eight quick points -- three with a kick to the head and five more with a turning kick to the head. Lee led 13-0 with 12 ticks left and cruised to the bronze medal from there. (Yonhap)