The Eastern European nation secured a 29-26 victory against their Mexican counterparts, whose 45-39 win against Iran in the first semi-final was overshadowed by lengthy stoppages, leading to the use of a manual scoring system for the remainder of the competition. 

The team, comprising of Bolat Izutdinov, Philipp Belov, brothers Konstantin and Viacheslav Minin, Anton Kotkov, Vasilii Nikitin and Vladislav Larin, who was named the most valuable player in the men's competition, overturned a 21-23 deficit in the third round tag-team match to silence the extremely animated home crowd. 

"It's amazing because there were a lot of problems in the beginning with the electronic system, but we believed that nothing could stop us," said Kotkov, whose team beat South Korea 51-38 in the last four.

"It didn't matter whether there were electronic or regular systems, we came here to win and we did it.

"Even when we were losing by one or two points, we just kept going and kept on doing the thing we do.

"We didn't play by their rules, we played by our rules, and that way we did it."

Hosts Mexico, fighting in blue, fought hard but fell just short in the men's final ©WTF



Meanwhile, in the women's competition, South Korea were far too strong for Ivory Coast in the final, winning 47-25.

Having won their preliminary group with three wins out of three, the Koreans, whose team consisted of Hye-Jeong Kim, Hwilang Kim, Milkyung Kim, Kyungseon Hwang, So-young Seo, Hyemi Park and Hyeri Oh, booked their place in the final by overcoming China 33-24.

Their opponents performed heroically to beat France 16-14 in the semi-finals but there can be no denying that the right team came out on top.

Asked whether their success was too easy, Hye-Jeong Kim, who was named the most valuable player in the women's competition, said: "Every match was very difficult but this is a team event and all the team members supported each other."

The PSS, which is supplied to the WTF by Daedo UK, consists of body armour fitted with electronic body protector sensors that register kicks and punches if applied with sufficient force, and was first used at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The system was further developed to incorporate the use of head-gear and featured in its revised form at the Manchester leg of the WTF Grand Prix Series in October, before being used again at the WTF Grand Prix final which concluded here on Thursday (December 4).

The South Korean women's team won all five of their matches at the WTF World Cup Taekwondo Team Championships ©WTF



Speaking after the event about the issues with the PSS, Jin Bang Yang, the WTF's technical delegate, said: "The system was okay in previous championships but we've come here and all of a sudden, there's been a lot of problems," he told insidethegames.

"The company tried to sort out one problem, which was followed by another problem and then it became three problems and four problems.

"This morning, we tried to use a more simple system but even that didn't work."

Bang Yang promised an investigation will be carried out to establish the cause of the problems ahead of future championships.  
 
"We have to go back to the very beginning stage," he added. 

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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