By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter

South Korea got back into the medal race at the Athens Olympics in fantastic fashion as wrestler Jung Ji-hyun won the country’s seventh gold medal of the Games on Thursday.

In the final match of the Greco-Roman -60kg class at Ano Liossia Olympic Hall, Jung defeated Roberto Monzon of Cuba by 3-0 in extra time.

The 21-year-old earned two points with a side roll and arm throw after two minutes in the first round after Monzon, the silver medallist from the World Championships, was put in the prone position for passive play. Jung himself was put into the prone position twice but managed to escape both jams unscathed.

The match went to extra time as a minimum of three points are required for the win and Jung only needed eight seconds to get the last point as he was able to break the Cuban’s grip and put him to the mat.

``I never expected to win the gold medal. I am very excited,’’ Jung said after the match. ``I thank God for this fantastic moment. It’s incredible. I cannot describe how I’m feeling.’’

``I’m not stopping here, that’s for sure. I want to repeat my success in four years time,’’ he added.

``Every match was difficult, but the final was the toughest because my opponent was very strong. At the end, I found my spirit and won.’’

Jung, who won this year’s Asian Championship, beat Eusebiu Iancu Diaconu of Romania 6-0 in the quarterfinals and upset two-time Olympic champion Armen Nazarian of Bulgaria 3-1 in the semifinals. Jung had lost to Nazarian by 4-0 at the Hungary Open in June.

In handball, the women’s team beat Brazil 26-24 and became the only South Korean team to reach the semifinals in any event.

Facing the Brazilians who were five centimeters taller on average, South Korea held the lead for most of the match by efficiently utilizing both sidelines.

Down 7-5, the team erupted for five goals in a row including Lee Sang-eun’s three penalty throws and stretched the lead to 16-9 at halftime.

South Korea looked set for an easy victory after stretching the lead to 11 points in the early second half through several fastbreak plays, but suddenly started to struggle and went scoreless for 11 minutes while Brazil scored seven goals to close to 23-19.

After Lee Gong-joo finally broke the drought, the team again yielded four straight goals as the gap shrank to two, but Choi Im-jung nailed down the victory with a minute left.

Lee led the team with seven goals on eight attempts and Woo Sun-hee added six goals. Lucila Silva had seven goals for Brazil.

``South Korea is considered one of the beat teams in the world,’’ Brazil’s goalkeeper Darly De Paula said after the match. ``They have a long tradition in handball and in order to face them we had to make no mistakes. Unfortunately, we made a lot of mistakes today. That’s why Korea won the game.’’

South Korean players didn’t attend the press interview after the game.

In modern pentathlon, Lee Choon-huan and Han Do-ryung recorded 5,068 and 4,936 points respectively to place 21st and 24th. Lee, the silver medallist at the World Championships, ranked ninth in riding but fell to 26th place in fencing. Han had a brisk start in shooting by placing himself in fifth. He stayed in the top 10 through fencing and swimming, but fell off the pace in the riding event, to be ranked 29th.

Russia’s Andrey Moiseev won the gold medal.

In hockey, the women’s team beat Japan 3-1 in the ranking decider for the seventh place. Oh Ko-won scored the first two goals on penalty corners in the 12th and 18th minutes and Kim Mi-seon added the third goal in the 19th minute.

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr