Flyweight (≤49 kilograms), Women

China’s Wu “Joy” Jingyu dominated this weight division throughout the 2015 Grand Prix series and seemed set to add to the two Olympic gold medals she already had, thus becoming the first taekwondo exponent to win three Olympic golds. It was no surprise when she won the WTF Female Player of the Year for 2015. By a strange coincidence, Wu played a bit part in a 2003 Chinese movie called “Taekwondo”, which told the story of a character winning gold at Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012 – just as Wu did. Thailand’s number two seed Panipak Wongpattanakit was dominated by Wu in 2015, but was the only fighter able to land a head kick on her. She was a medal contender as was the very experienced Croatian Lucija Zaninović, the world number three. Brazil’s fourth-seeded Iris Sing had the benefit of the home fans behind her.

Wu opened with a 10-1 win over the 16th seed, Huang Huai-Hsuan of Chinese Taipei, but then came the biggest shock of the day when she lost 17-7 to the Serbian Tijana Bogdanović. The number two seed, Wongpattanakit, also fell at the quarter-final stage, losing 6-5 to Kim So-hui of South Korea. Remarkably, all of the top four seeds went at the last eight stage with local favourite Sing losing heavily, 14-4, to Mexico’s Itzel Manjarrez. Wu’s conqueror, Bogdanovic went all the way to the final where she lost 7-6 to Kim So-Hui of South Korea, a 2013 and 2014 world champion. Kim reached the final after ending 0-0 against Yasmina Aziez of France in he semi-final, but won on the sudden death golden point. The bronze medals went to second seed Wongpattanakit and Patimat Abakarova of Azerbaijan.