Olympics-US taekwondo's comeback hopes rest on CJ Nickolas

By Mathieu Rosemain

PARIS (Reuters) - Fast-rising Carl Alan Nickolas is the United States' best hope of gold in taekwondo at the Olympics as they aim to eclipse South Korea and China in one of the most open-looking sports.

The social media savvy California native, who turns 23 a week before the start of the Paris Games, is world No 2 in the welterweight (-80 kg) category.

Last year he became the first American to win a medal at the taekwondo world championships since 2009, boosting the followers who can track his weekly training program on YouTube.

"He's one of my hot picks to get the gold in welterweight, which is my old division," twice British Olympic medallist Lutalo Muhammad told Reuters.

"America is back. They have a great team, they have a great coach ... they've got young hungry athletes," he said.

At the Tokyo Games in 2021, the U.S. had no male taekwondo athlete at an Olympics for the first time since the sport debuted as a medal sport in 2000.

America's fame in the sport has so far rested on Steven Lopez who, along his brother Mark and sister Diana, account for half of the country's 10 Olympic medals, ranking the U.S. third after South Korea and China.

South Korea has dominated the Olympic medal table, winning 22 in total including 12 gold, three silver, and seven bronze. Yet it won no single gold medal at the Tokyo Games.

That is testimony to the growing diversity of the martial art, which brought Olympic medals to 41 nations.

"Taekwondo is quite unpredictable, we always have shock Olympic champions, the predictions are always wrong," Muhammad said. "We see a lot of breakout performances at every single Games."

Taiwan, Serbia, Jordan and Ivory Coast won their first ever golds at any Olympic sport in taekwondo. So did Thailand, after Panipak Wongpattanakit won gold in the women's flyweight category (-49 kg) in Tokyo.

Cheick Sallah Cisse, who remains Ivory Coast's only Olympic gold medalist, will compete in the men's heavyweight (+80 kg) category at this year's Games.

RUSSIAN NEUTRALS

Russians should not be ruled out either.

In spite of the country's exclusion from the Paris Games, the two Tokyo 2020 gold medallists, Maksim Khramtsov (welterweight, -80 kg) and Vladislav Larin, (heavyweight, +80 kg) have qualified under the neutral banner.

China have the biggest team, having qualified six athletes out of a total of 128. The Asian giant, which only won one bronze medal at the last Games, have one athlete for each of the four women's categories, including Xiao Shunan in the heavyweights (+67 kg).

She will compete against Althea Laurin who, along with Magda Wiet Henin (-67 kg), are France's leading gold medal hopes.

The introduction of electronic systems to the sport from the London 2012 Games has played an important role in its international diversification.

The change came after controversies over the way points were scored, culminating with a memorable scene at the Beijing 2008 Games when a Cuban athlete ended up punching a referee.

"It has changed everything," twice French Olympic medallist Pascal Gentil told Reuters. "Today, anyone can win, as the electronic systems brings everyone to the same level in terms of fair play..."

New rules are also set to be introduced at the Paris Games. The matches, traditionally played in three two-minute rounds, will be decided under a best-of-three format.

The score will reset at the start of each round and athletes will have to win two of the three rounds to claim the match, a move that is aimed at bringing more combativeness.

Taekwondo, which means "the way of kicking and punching" debuted at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 as a demonstration event. The competition will take place under the iconic glass roof of Paris' Grand Palais exhibition hall from Aug. 7 to Aug. 10.

(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Ken Ferris)