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The time it took from the start of the attack until the end of the match: 1 second. After the victory, Lee Won-hee (25) put his hands together and performed the prayer of a champion, while downed rival Japan's Masahiro Takamatsu slammed his fist into the mat in self-reproach. With the day¡¯s win in the men¡¯s 73-kg judo competition at the Asian Games in Qatar on Tuesday, Lee has now bested the competition at every major event, including his gold medal finish at the 2004 Olympics, the world championships, the Asian championships and the Universiad in 2003. This marks the first time that a Korean judoka has accomplished the grand slam. Of the day¡¯s five matches, Lee was able to finish four with a comfortable victory by ippon.
His style throughout the matches seemed to transcend technique to artistry. The athlete, who has an IQ of 148, attacks in ways his opponents find difficult to anticipate. He is the rare breed of fighter completely adroit in both his upper, lower, and left and right games. In the first minute and 30 seconds of his finals bout with Takamatsu, Lee mostly quaked the right side with uchi-mata (inner thigh throw), sukui-nage (scoop throw) and seoi-nage (one-arm shoulder throw) attacks. But it was actually a left-side technique, the tai-otoshi, that scored Lee the ippon. The Japanese athlete, who had expected an uchi-mata, could do nothing but fall to the mat in the blitz of the surprise attack.
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South Korean judoka Lee Won-hee dominates Japan's Masahiro Takamatsu before winning the men¡¯s 73-kg bout by ¡®ippon¡¯ at the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar on Tuesday.
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Kwon Sung-sai, the former coach of the men¡¯s team who coached Lee for about 10 years, says, ¡°He was a fun kid to teach. You would teach him one thing, and then he would practice it till his body absorbed it completely and fully. What we saw today was about a 90 percent effort.¡±
Lee has reached the summit of every mountain a judo fighter can climb. But what got him started in the art of softness was a little surprising: his father Lee Sang-tae (60) wanted him to quit fighting. When Lee was in kindergarten, he could do 70 pushups, and with the boxing techniques his father had taught him, he was capable of taking down kids a lot bigger than him.
After taking gold in Athens, he faltered for a while, but in the final qualifiers for the Asian Games in July and at the finals, he showed off his excellent form. It has been said that he could achieve star status if he would participate in mixed martial arts competitions, but he says, ¡°I will always remain a judoka.¡±
To his father who celebrated his 60th birthday on Sunday, he says, ¡°I am proud to have become the hero in the story of Korea¡¯s first judo grand slam. I considered the trials of those days to be telling me to never grow arrogant.¡± Next year, he wants to take back his top spot in the world championships, and in Beijing in 2008 he hopes to achieve a second straight gold.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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