South Korea took the first two gold medals in the 2017 World Taekwondo Championships on Sunday with victories for both the men and women. In the men's under-54kg category, Kim Tae-Hun, bronze medallist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, defeated Armin Hadipour of Iran 10-6 to win a third successive world title. Sim Jae-Young added a second gold for the host nation in the women's under 46 kg event.
In the earlier semi-final, Kim strolled past Vito Dell'Aquila of Italy 16-0 while Hadipour defeated Thailand's Ramnarong Sawekwiharee 25-23.
Sim Jae-Young defeated Vietnam's Truong Thi Kim Tuyen 18-9 to make it two out of two for Korea and secure her first-ever world title.
Sim moved into the final by beating Andrea Ramirez of Colombia 19-6 while Truong overcame Thailand's Napaporn Charanawat 9-8.
But there was some bad news for the home crowd in the women's under-49kg category that started on Sunday.
2016 Olympic champion Kim So-Hui was eliminated at the quarter-finals by China's Wenren Yuntao 8-6.
Wenren moves into the semi-final on Monday and takes on Panipak Wongpattanakit of Thailand. In the other tie, Serbia's Vanja Stankovic meets Kristina Tomic of Croatia.
The men's Under-74 kg category also kicked off on Sunday.
Nikita Rafalovich of Uzbekistan will meet Kazahkstan's Kairat Sarymsakov in the semi-final, while Maksim Khramtsov of Russia takes on Iran's Masoud Hajji-Zavareh.
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