August 22, 2008 16:05 PM

Malaysia's Last Medal Hope Gears Up For Aggressive Show

By Tham Choy Lin

BEIJING, Aug 22 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's last medal hope, taekwondo lass Che Chew Chan, is all wound up for an aggressive launch into her Olympics bid on Saturday, which starts with meeting an old foe, Evgeniya Karimova of Uzbekistan, in the opening round of the above 67kg class.

Che beat the Uzbek 8-5 to top the Asian qualifying round in December.

"I will be using the same strategy against her. She will be under pressure, I'm feeling good," the 25-year-old said of the match, scheduled for tomorrow morning at the Olympic Sports Centre gymnasium.

"But I don't want to relax too much. In this heavy category, most of the contenders will be defensive but I want to be more forceful and aggressive," she said.

Both girls competed in this year's Asian Championship in China in different weight contests.

Che was number two in the middleweight class for 67 to 72kg while Karimova finished in fifth spot in the heavyweight category for above 72kg.

A win will see the Malaysian,, current Asian middleweight number two, into the quarterfinals against Nina Solheim of Norway or Noha Abd Rabo of Egypt. In height and weight, the Malaysian, who is 1.8m tall, is superior to them.

Solheim is currently Europe's third ranked middleweight champion. Noha was 17th in the world championships middleweight class last year.

If Che stumbles in the opening round or quarterfinals, she will wait in suspense to see if her victors will make it into the final. That will gain her a place in the repechage to fight for the bronze.

Two bronze medals are at stake. Losers to the finalists from all stages make it into the repechage.

When taekwondo was a demonstration sport in the Olympics, M.Vasugi and Hii King Hung returned with bronze medals from the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Games respectively.

-- BERNAMA

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