By Amaechi Agbo

Christianna Tyrologou of Greece defeated Chinazum Nwosu of Nigeria in the Round of 32 of the Female -53kg at the on-going World Taekwondo Championships to end the Nigeria medals hopes in the tournament, Bestchoicesports.com.ng can report.

The defeat came in the Golden Round with a Head Shot from the Greece competitor.

After a fierce defence and attack from both competitors in the first three rounds of regulation time, the stalemate led to the Golden Point round, where the first competitor to score wins.

After a full minute of hostility, the Greece competitor countered with a winning Head Axe kick after Nigeria’s Chinazum attacked with a body Side Kick to send the Nigerian out of the World Championships.

Speaking with our correspondent, the Technical Director, Nigeria Taekwonodo Federation, Chika Chukwumerije said that Chinazum is a medal fighter for Nigeria in no distant time but advised the taekwonodoist to move out of her comfort zone and and use her innate attacking talents maximally.

“Chinazum is a good fighter but needs to learn to move out of her comfort zone in a match. She has a huge repertoire of attacks but used only two tactics throughout the match and was too cautious.

“She will certainly win a medal at the All African Games, but if she wants to win the Gold medal, then a lot of work must be done to get her more confident with using more variety in the ring.

“Her main opposition at the All African Games will be Morocco and Tunisia, the number one and two seed. Chinazum is the number three seed in Africa.

“She and Tunisa have met twice before. She lost one and won one. She has never met Morocco before.

“She is one of Nigeria’s hopefuls for a Gold medal in Morocco, but she needs to fight with much more risk in Morocco if she is to deliver that mandate,” the Olympic medalist stated

In the medals table at the championship, Korea leads the medal ha with four gold medals and one bronze medal, followed by host Great Britain with two gold medals. Mexico is in third place with 2 silver and 1 bronze medal.

No African country has made it to the medal table yet. Countries with the North American and Oceania continents have also not made it to the medal table, as Asia and Europe continue to dominate the games.

Great Britain’s Bradly Sinden became the first male to win a Senior World Championship medal for the Taekwondo Powerhouse nation.

A record 927 athletes from 145 countries plus 1 refugee team are registered to compete at this year’s Championships making it the largest by numbers in the sport’s history.

The event will be ending on 19th May 2019. With 120 World ranking points, Medallists at the World Taekwondo Championships will have a huge boost towards qualifying automatically for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Top Six World Ranked Athlete get automatic qualifying slots.