S. Korea wins bronze in judo mixed team event

South Korea defeated Germany for the bronze medal in judo's mixed team event at the Paris Olympics on Saturday, its first medal in the event that made its Summer Games debut three years ago.

This was South Korea's fifth medal in judo in the French capital, after two silver medals and two bronze medals in individual events.

With the score tied at 3-3 after six matches involving three male and three female judokas each, the teams went to a sudden-death match in the men's -73-kilogram division after it was randomly selected.

An Baul then defeated Igor Wandtke after the German received his third and final "shido," or warning, at the 5:25 mark.

The mixed team event made its Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2021, with the -73kg, -90kg and +90kg divisions for men and -57kg, -70kg and +70kg for women.

In the bronze medal contest, all four individual medalists for South Korea were in action: Lee Joon-hwan (-90kg) and Kim Min-jong (+90kg) for men, and Huh Mimi (-57kg) and Kim Ha-yun (+70kg) for women.

Lee lost the opening match to Eduard Trippel. But then Kim Ha-yun, Kim Min-jong and Huh all won their matches to give South Korea a 3-1 lead.

An then lost to Wandtke in a grueling match that lasted more than nine minutes. Kim Ji-su then lost her women's -70kg match to Miriam Butkereit to allow Germany to tie the match score at 3-3.

An and Wandtke went back at it after their weight class was selected for the "decision contest." An withstood early pressure from Wandtke and was awarded the decisive win when Wandtke was penalized for non-combativity.

An had won silver in 2016 and then bronze in 2021 in the -66kg. He had to compete above his weight class in the team event but he said he was determined to come through for his team.

"It's such a gratifying bronze medal. We won it as a team," An said. "When it was decided that I had to go back out for the final match, I didn't think of anything else but winning it. I accepted the situation and started getting ready right away."

Lee Joon-hwan, who had won a bronze in the men's -81kg, also battled judokas above his weight class in the team event. And he said the team medal brought him more joy than his individual medal.

"Honestly, I wasn't all that pleased with my individual bronze medal," Lee said. "But I am really happy to have won this medal with my teammates. Even though I lost my match, these guys picked me up. I am so proud of them."

Kim Min-jong, the men's +100kg silver medalist from Friday, sat out South Korea's quarterfinal loss to France because of a knee injury he'd suffered during his individual event. That forced Lee to battle in the +90kg division in the team event.

Kim came back for the bronze medal match and won his match over Erik Abramov.

"The pain wasn't so bad and I felt I could compete through it," Kim said. "Plus, we didn't have anyone in my weight class. And after it was over, I cried tears of joy. I didn't even cry after my individual medal." (Yonhap)