The 22-year-old backs up his silver-medal winning heroics from Tokyo with more Olympic glory.
Tunisia’s Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi went through his full repertoire of tricks to seal bronze in the men’s taekwondo -58kg category at Paris 2024 on Wednesday.
Remarkably, Jendoubi, the silver medallist at the same weight from the Tokyo Games, now has two Olympic medals in his collection at just 22 years old. He also won bronze at the 2022 World Championships and is the reigning African champion.
He was denied a shot at gold – or another silver – by defeat to Park Tae-joon of South Korea in the semi-finals.
Instead, he found himself in the bronze medal match against the second seed Adrian Vicente of Spain, who had earlier beaten Palestine’s Omar Ismail in the Round of 16.
Vicente edged in front with a punch to lead 1-0, but Jendoubi responded in emphatic fashion and led for the remainder of the contest.
Two scoring head kicks, one awarded after review, along with two body kicks and a penalty saw him take the first round 11-3.
The second round was initially closer but Jendoubi edged 2-0 in front with a scoring kick to the trunk.
A head kick, followed by another scoring shot to the trunk, stretched his advantage to 7-0 and all but sealed the win.
At that point he showcased all his skills as he put on a show in the closing stages to seal a 12-1 victory in the round – and with it a bronze medal.
It was Tunisia’s second medal of these Games following fencer Fares Ferjani’s superb silver in the men’s individual sabre.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Dunya Abutaleb narrowly missed out on a historic bronze in the women’s -49kg category.
Abutaleb, who was bidding to become the Kingdom’s first ever female Olympic medallist, lost 2-0 in the bronze medal contest against Iran’s Mobina Nematzadeh.
The Iranian sneaked the first round 3-0 with a head kick with just seconds left on the clock.
Abutaleb, 27, thought she was on course to level the match but her appeal for a head kick of her own wasn’t upheld in the second round.
Nematzadeh then contorted impressively to land a scorpion kick and seal her bronze medal in style.
Earlier in the day, Palestine’s Ismail was defeated in the men’s -58kg Round of 16 – but not before pushing the experienced Vicente close.
UAE-based Ismail, who lives in Sharjah, was seconds away from taking the match into a deciding round.
After losing the first round 8-3, Ismail led the second 6-3 with 10 seconds remaining, but a head kick from Vicente in the final exchanges turned the contest back in the Spaniard’s favour.
Considering the pedigree of his opponent – Vicente won bronze at last year’s World Championships – Ismail, 18, proved he can challenge the best in the sport.
Ismail had earlier made a winning start to his campaign with a 2-0 victory over Hadi Tiranvalipour of the Refugee Olympic Team.
Ismail won the first round 4-3 to take an early lead and followed it up with a 5-0 second-round victory to book his place in the Round of 16.
source/content: thenationalnews.com (headline edited)
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Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi celebrates with his coaches after claiming a bronze medal. Getty Images
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