Mark Lopez Wins Bronze on Final Day

 

Mark Lopez (Sugar Land, Texas) earned the fourth world championship medal of his career with a bronze-medal finish on Sunday in the men's lightweight division at the WTF World Taekwondo Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark. He won four straight matches on the day before losing his semifinal match, 7-5, to Korea's Joon-tae Kim.

Lopez started the day with a 1-0 win over Brazil's Licinio Espindola, Jr., and followed that up with victories over Puerto Rico's Juan Sanchez (4-3), Austria's Manuel Mark (5-2) and Thailand's Patiwat Thongsalap (5-3) to reach the semifinal. Kim would go on to win the gold medal over Canada's Maxime Potvin and Germany's Mokdad Ounis would take the other bronze medal in the division.

The bronze medal by Lopez adds to his collection of a gold in 2005, silver in 2003 and bronze in 1999, and gives the U.S. team a total of three medals for the week. Mark's brother Steven Lopez (Sugar Land, Texas) won a gold medal in the men's welterweight division on Wednesday, becoming the first person to win five world titles, and women's bantamweight Danielle Pelham (Bothell, Wash.) won gold on Friday.

Other U.S. fighters in action on Sunday's final day included women's heavyweight Lauren Cahoon (Miami, Fla.) and women's lightweight Stephanie Beckel (Miami, Fla.).

Cahoon reached the quarterfinal round with an overtime superiority decision over Russia's Irina Bykova and a 2-0 win over Colombia's Lorena Diaz. She lost her quarterfinal match to eventual gold medalist Rosana Simon Alamo of Spain, 8-0. China's Rui Liu was the silver medalist and the two bronze medals were awarded to Korea's Seol Jo and Brazil's Natalia Silva.

Beckel made it to the round of 16 by virtue of a 1-0 win over Indonesia's Rahadewineta Rahadewineta and a 14-11 victory over Kazakhstan's Yekaterina Dmitriyeva. Her run came to an end with a 7-6 loss to Carole Toh of the Ivory Coast. Winning the women's lightweight title was Korea's Su-jeong Lim. Silver medalist was China's Hua Zhang and the bronze medalists were Estafania Hernandez Garcia of Spain and Chonnapas Premwaew of Thailand.

FINAL TEAM STANDINGS
Men
1. Korea - 63 pts. (3 gold, 1 silver, 0 bronze)
2. Iran - 55 pts. (1-1-3)
3. Spain - 42 pts. (1-1-1)
4. Turkey - 41 pts. (1-0-2)
5. USA - 41 pts. (1-0-1)

Women
1. China - 64 pts. (2-2-1)
2. Korea - 54 pts. (2-1-2)
3. Spain - 50 pts. (2-0-2)
4. France - 38 pts. (1-0-1)
5. USA - 32 pts. (1-0-0)

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