Double Olympic champion Chen Zhong won China's second gold at the Taekwondo World Championships by defeating Han Jin Sun of South Korea 5-4 in the women's +72kg final in Beijing on Tuesday.

In the final match, Chen led throughout taking all three bouts (3-2, 4-2, 5-4), thus cementing her position as the first Chinese fighter to complete a Grand Slam of the Olympic, World Cup and World Championships titles.

The 25-year-old Chen discovered taekwondo in 1995, abandoning her former passion for basketball. Blessed with physical strength, rapid reflexes and a lethal high kick, she swept the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Olympics and grabbed the gold in the 72kg weight class at the 2001 World Cup.

"I won the gold at my first Olympic Games but the World Championships are replete with more participants with great strength," commented Chen who also won two silvers and one bronze in previous worlds. She added that her title had been won on the back of former failures, such as the leg injury that prevented her from competing since 2004. Chen has now set herself up as a firm favorite ahead of the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

According to the regulations from the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), each nation may send four athletes (two women, two men) to the Olympics with China set to finalize its roster next month.

Now the championships have ended, China and Spain sat atop the medal tables with two golds and one bronze apiece only behind South Korea who dominated with four golds, four silvers and four bronzes.

Wu Jingyu claimed the women's 48kg title on the first day while injury-plagued Luo Wei fell to Korean Lee In Jong in the semifinal of the women's under 72kg on Sunday. The male fighters failed to emulate their female peers since top-ranked Liu Xiaobo lost out in the quarter-finals.

"Although we had two golds, we were sub-par in the middle weight categories," said Lu Xiudong, head coach of the China women's team, adding that future training strategies would be geared towards the European teams which dominated the championships. "The European fighting styles will blaze a new path in taekwondo development," He added.

(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, May 23, 2007)