REFILE-UPDATE 1-Olympics-Taekwondo-Octagonal mat means there's nowhere to hide

By Paulo Prada
Reuters

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 17 (Reuters) - There is no hiding place for competitors in Olympic taekwondo, which kicked off on Wednesday, after a significant change designed to make the sport more accessible to fighters and spectators.

An octagonal mat, first used at the world championships last year, has replaced the traditional rectangular one, which provided corners into which fighters could at times retreat and pursue defense-minded tactics.

In an effort to speed up the action and give fighters more angles in which to move, the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) chose to use a mat shaped more like the rings employed in ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts at the Rio Games.

And after the initial bouts on Wednesday, which included several upsets, athletes welcomed the move, saying the mats produced more action.

"It means your opponent has nowhere to hide," said Rui Bragança, a 24-year-old Portuguese fighter, competing in the 58kg category, following his victory on Wednesday afternoon over Colombia's Oscar Muñoz. "The fight is more fluid, more active."

Along with slight changes in scoring and the electronic equipment fighters wear to help register points, the octagon is meant to be "more athlete-focused and engaging for fans," Chungwon Choue, president of the WTF, said at a press conference this week.

Croatian Lucija Zaninovic after her opening bout in the women's 49kg category, said she, too, was happy with the octagon. "It provides more contact, more fighting," she said.

Wednesday's bouts included two upsets.

In a fight that stunned many fans of the sport, Tijana Bogdanovic, an 18-year-old Serbian who is the reigning European champion, defeated Jingyu Wu, a 29-year-old from China who won gold at the previous two Olympics and who many believed this time would clinch a third.

"She is a really big fighter, a legend for me," Bogdanovic said, still in disbelief after her victory. Nearby, Wu walked past reporters and cried.

Earlier on Wednesday, 26-year-old Moroccan fighter Omar Hajjami defeated Iran's Farzan Ashourzadeh Fallah, a 19-year-old world champion who had also been considered a gold medal contender. (Reporting by Paulo Prada,; Editing by Neville Dalton and Meredith Mazzilli)

08/17/2016 16:08