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`Kick catch' leads to Oscar's fall

Indonesian sanshou fighter Oscar Yaqut's powerful punches caused his opponent's nose to bleed, but weaknesses in other areas cost him the chance of continuing his fight for a gold medal, leaving him with the bronze at the World Junior Wushu Championship in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Friday

Musthofid (The Jakarta Post)
Nusa Dua, Bali
Sat, December 13, 2008

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`Kick catch' leads to Oscar's fall

Indonesian sanshou fighter Oscar Yaqut's powerful punches caused his opponent's nose to bleed, but weaknesses in other areas cost him the chance of continuing his fight for a gold medal, leaving him with the bronze at the World Junior Wushu Championship in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Friday.

The final round of the sanshou will be played Saturday -- and none of the eight Indonesian fighters will be among those fighting for one of the 12 gold medals on offer. The host managed only three bronze medals after Oscar joined Al-Muharromin and female fighter Friska Ria Wibowo in the list of semifinal losers.

Al-Muharromin lost 2-0 to Akbar Muhammad Zadeh of Iran in the men's 52-kg category. The Indonesian seemed so frustrated with his performance he dropped the mouthpiece and kicked it away.

Like Oscar, Friska found her Chinese opponent Zhao Xuna a hard nut to crack, and lost 2-0 in the women's 48-kg bout.

Sanshou, the combative style of wushu, is akin to boxing. However, having good punches alone is not enough, because sanshou encompasses aspects of different martial arts including kicks, grappling, throws, locks and chokes.

Oscar had the upper hand when it came to punching in his 56-kg bout against Feng Jie of China at the Westin Hotel. He managed to throw a barrage of punches that at one stage sent Feng staggering. The referee even had to halt the fight for a moment during the second round to clean up the blood dripping from the Chinese nose.

Despite his winning punches, Oscar could not avoid the kick catch. Over and over again he fell to the catch and was tripped down to the canvas.

"Oscar trails in stamina and power. The takedown is scored higher than punches in sanshou," Ngatino, an official of Indonesian team, said.

Compared with taolu, Indonesia's sanshou performance is lagging behind other countries', Ngatino said. Wushu Indonesia (WI) is planning a regular tournament in a bid to boost the athletes' performance in international tournaments.

"We plan to hold a circuit comprising about eight legs in several cities. The winners from each leg will advance to the grand final, to which we will invite foreign competitors," said Ngatino, who is also the secretary-general of WI.

Chinese fighters, who featured in eight of the 12 events, matched their taolu performers by swatting away their opponents to book their places in the final. The four events that will not feature Chinese fighters are the men's 52-kg, 70-kg and 80-kg categories and the women's 60-kg category.

With a possible eight medals from the sanshou, the Chinese contingent looks set to claim for a second time the championship it first won in Kuala Lumpur in 2006.

China leapfrogged other countries in the taolu standings with an overall collection of 10 gold medals after it picked up five on Friday. Indonesia hauled in three gold medals but stayed in third place behind Japan, whose two golds on the day took it to eight overall.

After taking a bronze on Thursday, Ivana Ardelia Irmanto moved up two places by winning a gold medal in the women's nandao. See Min of Malaysia and Maryam Esmati Khodabandeh of Iran finished second and third, respectively.

The other two golds came from the men's contest with Erwin Wijayanto prevailing over the Philippines' Steven Luis Moral Ngo and Britain's Sam Mak in the jianshu event, and Charles Sutanto triumphing over American Colvin Wang and Zhu Zhiwei of Macau.

The taolu contest will offer the remaining eight gold medals on the closing day Saturday.

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