Wang Ki-chun

Korean spelling
Hangeul	왕기춘
Hanja	王 機 春
Revised Romanization	Wang Gi-chun
McCune- Reischauer	Wang Kich'un
See also : Korean name

Wang Ki-chun (born September 13, 1988 in Jeonju ) is a former South Korean judoka . He was second in the 2008 Olympic Games and two-time lightweight world champion.

Athletic career

The 1.71 m tall Wang Ki-chun won a bronze medal at the U20 World Championships in 2006. At the 2007 World Championships in Rio de Janeiro , he defeated the Japanese Yūsuke Kanamaru in the quarterfinals . After his semi-final victory against Tajik Rassul Boqijew , he also won the final against Elnur Məmmədli from Azerbaijan. With that, Wang Ki-Chun was world champion in the adult class two days after his 19th birthday.

He was still 19 years old when he competed in the Beijing Olympics eleven months later . After two Ippon victories, he had to fight the Brazilian Leandro Guilheiro in the quarter-finals and Rassul Boqijew in the semifinals for the full five-minute fight. The final against Elnur Məmmədli, however, lasted only thirteen seconds, then the man from Azerbaijan won.

After victories at the Grand Slam tournaments in Tokyo, Paris and Moscow, Wang won the title at the Universiade in Belgrade in July 2009. At the World Championships in Rotterdam he won the semifinals over the Russians Mansur Issajew and in the final against the North Korean Kim Chol-su . A year later at the 2010 World Championships in Tokyo , Wang defeated French Ugo Legrand in the quarter-finals and lost the semifinals to Japanese Hiroyuki Akimoto . The South Korean won the battle for the bronze medal against Mansur Issayev. Two months later, Wang Ki-chun met Akimoto again in the 2010 Asian Games final and lost. In April 2011, the South Korean defeated the Japanese Riki Nakaya in the final of the Asian Championships . At the 2011 World Championships in Paris , he was eliminated in the round of 16 against Ugo Legrand. In 2012 he won again at the Asian Championships, in the final he defeated the Japanese Shōhei Ōno . Wang won his first four fights at the London Olympics . In the semifinals he was defeated by Mansur Isayev and the battle for a bronze medal he lost to Ugo Legrand, so that he finished fifth. In 2013 he finished third at the Asian Championships. In July he won the Universiade in Kazan.

In 2014, Wang Ki-chun rose from lightweight to light middleweight. In 2015 he was defeated in this weight class by the Russian Khassan Chalmursajew in the final at the Universiade in Gwangju.

Web links

• Wang Ki-chun in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Tournament results at judoinside.com

Footnotes

1. ↑ Match balance at judoinside.com
2. ↑ The representation follows the Olympic database Sports-Reference .

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Wang is the family name here, Ki-chun is the first name.