Japoy goes Tshomlee’s way in thrilling fight-off

GUANGZHOU—It was eerily familiar. For a few seconds, taekwondo poster boy Japoy Lizardo looked skyward, his hands on his lips as he tried to comprehend the chain of events that knocked him out of the championship fight of the men’s under-54 kg gold in the 16th Asian Games. Then the picture became clear in his mind. Lizardo overcooked a turning side kick, failed to straighten himself immediately and got tagged by a kick that Korean Kim Seong-ho launched rather aimlessly. “I don’t think he even saw where I was,” Lizardo told the Inquirer in Filipino. “He just kicked and unfortunately for me, it landed. I did not see it coming because my back was slightly turned.” The kick came in the first-to-score sudden death, which Lizardo forged with a hit right in the final second of the last regular round to knot the match at 7-all. Once again, the Philippines lost a final slot in sudden death. Tshomlee Go was reduced to tears Friday as his shot at the gold evaporated in extra time. Lizardo thus settled for the bronze medal, one of three the country won as the curtains lowered on the Asiad’s taekwondo competitions at Guangdong University. “It was really close and when you’re in sudden death, it’s basically a toss coin,” said coach Rocky Samson. Paul Romero suffered an even more painful—literally—semifinal loss. After blazing his way through the quarterfinals of the men’s under-58 kg division, Romero ran into a tough Yang Wei-chen of Chinese Taipei and not only was  overmatched through three rounds, but he had to quit due to a painful injury. Romero tore his right hamstring muscle and was carried off a stretcher to the clinic. Kirstie Alora also lost her semifinal bout against Feruza Yergeshova in the women’s under-73 kg class, 3-7. “I was really hoping to compete for the gold,” said Alora. “I felt like I would have a chance in the final because [Yergeshova] was really the strongest bet in my division. But I really had a difficult time adjusting to the mats, which had become a bit slippery.”