Wu on course for repeat taekwondo title

Wu Jingyu of China remained on course for a second successive Olympic title as she reached the women's under-49kg taekwondo final on Wednesday. The twice world champion was in devastating form and ended her quarter-final and semi-final early by accumulating a 12-point lead. Only first round opponent Elizabeth Zamora of Guatemala saw the end of her fight, although she was beaten 10-2. The quarter-final against Japan's Erika Kasahara was ended inside the second round as Wu had built up a 14-0 lead. And in the semis, twice European champion Lucija Zaninovic failed to make it the end of the three rounds as she was beaten 19-7. Wu will face three-time world champion Brigitte Yague of Spain in the evening's final. Yague produced a stunning last round to beat seventh seed Chanatip Sonkham of Thailand in the semi-final. Trailing 6-2 going into the final round she levelled the scores at 9-9 with a four-point spinning head kick before nicking victory 10-9 with a sneaky punch. It was a great afternoon session for Spain as world number one Joel Gonzalez reached the men's under-58kg final. He was given a scare by Sweden's Uno Sanli (7-6) and Safwan Khalil of Australia (5-3) in his first two rounds but easily overcame Colombia's Oscar Munoz 13-4. Gonzalez will fight South Korea's Lee Dae-Hoon in the final. Lee upset third seed Pen-Ek Karaket of Thailand by a golden point before beating Athens 2004 bronze medallist Tamer Bayoumi of Egypt in the same way. Russia's Alexey Denisneko, who had beaten second seed Wei Chen-Yang of Taiwan in the quarters, was up next for Lee. This time the Korean managed to win within the allotted three rounds, but only by a narrow 7-6 scoreline and after surviving a late appeal from the Russian for a penalty, which had it been given would have levelled matters and required another sudden death extra round.