London: Jade Jones won Britain’s first Olympic taekwondo gold medal after beating China’s Hou Yuzhuo in the final of the women’s featherweight division at the London Games on Thursday night.
Jones, who had lost to Hou in the final of last year’s world championships, rode a wave of support from the home crowd to bully her way past the Chinese fighter, running out a 6-4 winner to earn Britain’s 25th gold of the Games.
The 19-year-old from north Wales grabbed British and Welsh flags from the crowd and raced around in a lap of honour as the 8,000 fans in the ExCel arena roared her on.
“It feels crazy. It’s amazing and the crowd’s amazing,” she said. “To be the first [British] athlete to win Olympic [taekwondo] gold is amazing.”
Jones’ success followed hot on the heels of fellow Briton Nicola Adams winning the first ever Olympics women’s boxing gold medal, when she beat Ren Cancan of China 16-7.
On Friday, Great Britain won a pair of silver medals in the sailing competitions at Weymouth thanks to their men’s and women’s 470 class crews.
Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell finished second in their medal race, but it was fleet leaders Australia who finished ahead of them, meaning they took gold.
Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark, meanwhile, made a major misjudgment in their medal race that left them second-from-last and allowed New Zealand to take the honours.
“We just feel a bit gutted at the moment that we didn’t put a big show,” Clark said afterwards.
