Unseeded South Korean judoka Song Dae-Nam's long wait for recognition at the highest level ended with an Olympic gold medal on Wednesday as he claimed the men's under-90kg title.
Song scored a half point waza-ari just 10 seconds into a sudden death period of golden score to beat Cuba's Asley Gonzalez in the final.
Song's success was remarkable in that he had never even represented his country at either world or Olympic level until 2010 when he was already 31.
When he did fight in the World Championships the last two years, he didn't get very far.
Having been in or around the national team set-up for almost 10 years, he was almost always back-up to a host of other more celebrated fighters.
Yet finally given his Olympic opportunity at 33 -- an age when most fighters have already retired -- he grasped it with both hands.
"I began judo at 12 and since then my dream was to win Olympic gold," he said.
"With that strong determination I was able to go through every event and although I wasn't able to win the Asian Championships and World Championships, I had one clear objective, which was winning gold and I'm very happy to have achieved that goal."
Now having done that he says he will concentrate his efforts on the next generation of fighters.
"There is no change in my decision to retire after the Olympics, I was about to retire four years ago but I pushed back my decision four years," he said.
"Now I would like to focus on nurturing younger athletes."
When it came to the crunch in the final, which had moved into golden score, it was Song who kept focussed and pounced when the chance arose.
He had also been alert in the semi-final when he caught Tiago Camilo early on with a seoi-nage (shoulder throw) to earn the only score of the bout, a waza-ari.
Having pinned Uruguay's Juan Romero in the first round and thrown Elkhan Mammadov of Azerbaijan with a peculiar reverse seoi-nage, the unseeded fighter then came up against second seed Masashi Nishiyama, who eventually took bronze.
World champion Ilias Iliadis of Greece beat former Olympic finallist Camilo of Brazil for the other bronze medal.
The early rounds of Wednesday's competition were filled with spectacular throws, brilliant judo and numerous shocks, with the contest between the two Asian fighters especially exciting.
Song twice caught Nishiyama with a seoi-nage but was thrown once himself with osoto-gari (major outer reap), progressing to the semi-finals by virtue of a minimum yuko advantage.
Fifth seed Gonzalez reached the final courtesy of a lightning fast, and late, tai-otoshi (body drop) against Russia's Kirill Denisov in the semi-final.
The Russian had upset Iliadis in the quarter-final, beating the Athens 2004 champion (at under-81kg) with two yuko scores having caught him with an uchi-mata (inner thigh throw) and a tani-otoshi (valley drop).
Camilo, who won a silver medal in Sydney 12 years ago when just 18 years of age and fighting two weight divisions lower at under-73kg, had been in great form early on but faded as the tournament progressed.
His tai-otoshi on twice Olympic medallist Roman Gontyuk of Ukraine was sublime, and almost matched by his osoto-gari on Italy's Roberto Meloni.
One of the main shocks of the day saw unfancied Australian Mark Anthony stun fourth seed Varlam Liparteliani of Georgia.
Britain's Winston Gordon gave the home fans brief cheer when he produced perhaps the throw of the day, an o-guruma (major wheel) to flatten Canada's Alexandre Emond.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/worth-wait-song-wins-mens-90kg-judo-gold-182850894.html
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