British taekwondo star Mahama Cho secured a gold medal at the Moldova Open in Chisinau, beating Serbia’s Danilo Vukelic to warm up perfectly for the World Championships this summer.
The 27-year-old narrowly missed out on a medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, finishing fourth after losing 5-4 in an aggressive fight against Brazilian Maicon Andrade in the men’s +80kg category.
But he is fighting better than ever this season and is targeting further success at the World Championships in South Korea next month – which he arrives at with real momentum behind him.
“God willing, I will perform even better at the World Championships next month, especially with help and guidance of my coach, Steve Jennings,” said Cho.
“It’s nice to be back on the mat, after having some time off.”
There was further success for British athletes, as Christian McNeish also secured gold in the -74kg weight division.
The London-born star defeated Serbia’s Damir Fejzic 14-5 in the final, in a convincing display.
Elsewhere, Damon Sansum and Bradly Sinden won silver medals – with Sinden unfortunate to lose 17-16 to Russian Arman Irgaliev in the -68kg final.
Sansum finished runner-up to Ukrainian Andrei Garbar in the -87kg final.
Elsewhere, Max Cater was beaten in the second round preliminaries, going down 8-5 to Poland’s Jaroslaw Mecmajer.
Sportsbeat 2017